The Senate has confirmed Maj. Gen. William Ingram, former adjutant general of the North Carolina National Guard and current special assistant to the Army vice chief of staff for promotion to lieutenant general and director of the Army National Guard.Ingram’s confirmation occurred during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Nov. 10, the first ever when all six members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testified to the full committee.The testimony, for which the Joint Chiefs were joined by Air Force Gen. Craig McKinley, chief of the National Guard Bureau, was on the matter of whether the guard bureau chief should become a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.Senators confirmed Ingram during a brief break after they had reached a quorum.Ingram will succeed Army Maj. Gen. Raymond Carpenter, who has served as acting director of the Army National Guard for 29 months, since his appointment by McKinley on May 29, 2009, following the retirement of Army Lt. Gen. Clyde Vaughn.Ingram will be the 19th director and the third three-star general to fill the position. The first was Army Lt. Gen. Roger Schultz, who served in the role from 1998 until his 2005 retirement.Prior to Schultz, the director was a major general, except for a period in the 1960s when three consecutive directors were brigadier generals. The first director was Army Maj. Gen. Raymond Fleming, from 1948 to 1950.The director is responsible for formulating, developing and coordinating all programs, policies and plans affecting the Army National Guard and its more than 350,000 citizen-soldiers.Ingram has almost 40 years of service as an Army National Guard officer. He was a distinguished graduate from Officer Candidate School at the North Carolina Military Academy at Fort Bragg in 1972.He has commanded U.S., United Nations and NATO forces in Croatia, Macedonia and Kosovo and he served as chairman of the Army Reserve Forces Policy Committee.He has also had leading roles in homeland security and domestic disaster response during his more than nine years as North Carolina’s adjutant general.(Editor’s note: This story is based on a release from the National Guard Bureau.)