Peters Township Resident Promoted to Brigadier General

Desert Storm and Afghanistan veteran. Professor and author. Husband and father.

resident Lewis Irwin can add another title to his resume: brigadier general.

Irwin received his U.S. Army promotion at Fort Bragg, NC, in July, and on Sunday he shared the honor with his family, friends and colleagues, hosting a reception and reaffirmation of oath ceremony at the McGarity Army Reserve Center in Moon Township.

Among the guests were the veteran color guards of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 764 in Peters, where Irwin is a member, and American Legion Post 639 in Claysville, where he grew up.

Conducting the reaffirmation was Maj. Gen. Peter Lennon, commander of the 377th Theater Sustainment Command. A 1982 graduate of McGuffey High School and 1986 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, Irwin commands the 926th Engineer Brigade, consisting of more than 5,300 soldiers.

His operational assignments and other missions have taken him to Panama, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan. He was among the first American soldiers to enter Iraq during Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

He acknowledged his wife, Marcia, an operating room nurse at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, for her support during his time overseas. They have three children: Mary, a 2012 graduate of West Point; Eva, a student at Washington & Jefferson College; and Andrew, a West Point cadet.

Irwin is a professor of public policy and government at Duquesne University, and earned his master’s and doctorate in political science from Yale University, along with a master’s in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College.

He is the author of three books on American politics and public policy.

Follow Peters Patch on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for our daily newsletter.