Brig. Gen. Robert B. Brown, second in command of the 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks since December 2007, has been picked to become chief of staff of U.S. Army Europe and the 7th Army and deputy commanding general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Germany.

Brown, 49, just returned from his second Iraq tour where he was deputy commanding general of Multinational Division North for a year.

The Pentagon also announced that District of Columbia Army National Guard Brig. Gen. Barbaranette Bolden will be the next mobility assistant to Adm. Robert Willard, commander of U.S. Pacific forces, replacing Maj. Gen. Vern Miyagi, who recently retired.

Brown, who was promoted to receive his second star in October, was introduced to big-wave surfing at Haleiwa's Alii Beach when he moved to Hawaii in 2005. He even had a surfboard shaper airbrush a Tropic Lightning shoulder patch of a lightning bolt superimposed on a taro leaf and hibiscus flowers on a longboard.

Brown has told friends he would like to retire in the islands.

Brown graduated from the U.S. Military Academy and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the infantry in 1981. He has held several assignments in Hawaii, beginning in 1992 at Fort Shafter as a plans officer, followed by assignments with the 25th Infantry Division and deployment to Haiti with the division in 1994.

In 1998 Brown commanded the 2nd Battalion with 1st Cavalry Division and was sent to Bosnia. Brown led the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team at Fort Lewis, Wash., and deployed to Iraq for the first time in 2005.

He returned to Hawaii in November 2005 for an assignment at Camp Smith.