Major General Arnold Fields retired from the United States Marine Corps in 2004 while serving as Deputy Commander of Marine Corps Forces in Europe and Africa. He currently serves the Department of Defense in support of the congressionally authorized Vietnam War Commemoration. During his 35 years on active military duty, he served in many capacities, leading servicemen and women and civilians in peace and war. As a general officer, he served as Director of the Marine Corps Staff at the Pentagon; Commanding General of all Marine Corps Bases in Hawaii with additional duties as Deputy Commanding General of the Third Marine Expeditionary Force; Commander of U.S. Central Command’s Forward Headquarters in the Middle East; and Inspector General of U.S. Central Command.

He is a combat veteran having led a motorized infantry battalion in operations to liberate Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War. He has remained actively engaged since retiring from military duty and has held several federal executive positions, including appointment to the U.S. Department of State as Chief of Staff of the Iraq Reconstruction and Management Office; to the Department of Defense as Deputy Director of the Department’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies; and a Presidential Appointment as U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction(SIGAR) where he provided oversight of all U.S. appropriated funds for Afghanistan’s reconstruction, which amounted to over $61 billion during his tenure.

Fields is a Fellow of the congressionally chartered National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) where he chairs the Academy’s Standing Panel on International Affairs and is elected to the Academy’s Board of Directors. He also serves on the Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment (BICE) of the National Academy of Sciences; and on the Board of Directors of the Afghanistan-American Chamber of Commerce(AACC). His military decorations include the Navy Distinguished Service Medal; the Defense Superior Service Medal (two awards); the Bronze Starr Medal with Combat “V”; the Meritorious Service Medal; the Vietnam Service Medal; and the Combat Action Ribbon. His civilian decorations include the Navy Superior Service Award and the Department of State Superior Honor Award. He is a Distinguished Alumnus of South Carolina State University and is inducted into the University’s Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) Hall of Fame. He received his Master’s Degree in Management from Pepperdine University. Fields is a Graduate of the Army War College, the Marine Corps Command and Staff College and the Marine Corps Amphibious Warfare School.

He completed seminars at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government focused on post-Soviet Russia and independent Black Sea nations. He occasionally accepts invitations to speak on leadership and national security. Engagements have included Carnegie Mellon University in Adelaide Australia; the University of Adelaide, Australia; the University of the District of Columbia; and the Madinah Institute of Leadership and Entrepreneurship (MILE) in Saudi Arabia. In June 2017, General Fields was invited to Nairobi, Kenya to chair an International Symposium on Africa Security.