This week John R. Allen was to be promoted to be the top U.S. military man in Europe, but that plan got derailed with the Petraeus-Broadwell sex scandal.
General John Allen is currently the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. He was about to be made the Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, with his confirmation set to occur last week. The position harkens back to our first Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower, in World War II.
General Allen is a Marine. Like General David H. Petraeus, Allen is considered a scholar-soldier. Allen is known to be a student of military history, with a specific interest in what happened in Maryland during the Civil War. When Petraeus left command in Afghanistan last year to become the director of the CIA, Allen took over.
Before that, General Allen was Deputy Commander at the U.S. Central Command, which is located in Florida, at MacDill Air Force Base, outside of Tampa. That’s where he met Jill Kelley, we’re told. She’s the “social planner” with tight bonds to the military base and a family friend of David Petraeus and his wife, Holly. It was Kelley who triggered the FBI investigation that led to the discovery of Paula Broadwell‘s emails with General Petraeus, which in turn led to the discovery of emails between General Allen and Jill Kelley.
So far, it doesn’t look as though there was any actual hanky-panky between General Allen and Jill Kelley. Unless you count using pet names like “sweetheart” as hanky-panky. If you do, your life must be continually aflutter.
For more background on the characters in this new scandal, read the Who2 biographies of David H. Petraeus and Paula Broadwell, as well as the new Who2 biographies of General John R. Allen and Florida socialite Jill Kelley.