Vice Admiral Robert Harwood retired from the Navy in 2013. He grew up in a Navy family, graduating from Tehran American High School in Iran. After graduating from the US Naval Academy, College of Naval Command, the Naval Staff College and Armed Forces Staff College, he served as an executive fellow at RAND and graduated from MIT Center for International Studies. He served as commander of SEAL Team Three, Assault Team leader and operations officer at Naval Special Warfare unit 1, aide-de-camp to Commander, US Special Operations Command; Command and more. Harwood served in the executive office of the President at the White House where he served on the National Security Council as the Director of Strategy and Policy for the Office of Combating Terrorism. His first flag assignment was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff representative to the National Counterterrorism Center, as a member of the Senior Interagency Strategy Team. Additionally, he served as deputy commander, Combined Joint Interagency Task Force 435 from 2009 to 2011 in Afghanistan. Harwood commanded troops in Afghanistan and Iraq over six years since September 11, 2001.