CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Brigadier General Jim Seward is officially taking command of the West Virginia National Guard.
Governor Patrick Morrisey named Seward as Adjutant General during a formal assumption ceremony at the McLaughlin Air National Guard Base in Charleston Wednesday.
“Ladies and gentleman, it is my distinct honor to recognize and congratulate Jim Seward as he becomes the West Virginia Adjutant General,” Morrisey announced during Wednesday’s ceremony.
Seward is a brigadier general in the National Guard who comes to West Virginia from South Dakota where he held a number of leadership roles. 
Morrisey said he chose Seward for this role as he has a long history of militaristic leadership and honors, serving as an enlisted combat arms soldier in the U.S. Army and a recipient of the Bronze Star among other honors.
His duties included serving in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan after kicking off his career on the border in Germany in 1987.
Morrisey said West Virginia couldn’t ask for a more decorated and qualified person to help lead our troops in the state.
“I couldn’t be more pleased and humbled to help recruit one of the single best people for this role,” Morrisey told media following the ceremony. “I couldn’t imagine picking a better person to serve as Adjutant General in West Virginia, and so, this is someone, as I’ve been getting to know him more and more, he’s going to make West Virginia so proud.”
During Wednesday’s ceremony, Seward said expanding his roots to West Virginia is just a continuation of his militaristic leadership mindset that he plans to keep carrying out with honor and dignity.
“While I’m new to West Virginia, I’m not new to rural America, or the mountains, or the rivers, and I’m certainly not new to serving the nation in this uniform,” Seward said during the ceremony.
Seward had previously also held multiple roles in state government in South Dakota from 2010 to 2016, including serving as General Counsel to South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard and supervising the state’s Department of Corrections.
He was also a formerly elected district attorney in Butte County, SD, and a member of South Dakota’s Law Enforcement Standards and Training Commission.
Additionally, Seward served as director of the Veterans Justice Commission, which launched in 2022 by the Council on Criminal Justice.
Seward’s overall duties will now involve providing command guidance to the West Virginia National Guard and Air National Guard, which is composed of more than 6,000 citizen soldiers.
During Seward’s induction speech Wednesday, he said West Virginia upholds a rich militaristic honor and tradition, starting from the June 1775 Bee Line March where troops in the state marched to George Washington’s’ aid in Boston at the start of the Revolutionary War. He said West Virginia’s loyalty to the nation only continued on the battlefields of WWII where the National Guard helped liberate Europe, and during the Global War on Terror following the attack on September 11, 2001, a fight which lasted over 20 years.
Seward said the vision of the National Guard in West Virginia is to continue the legacy of strong military duty the state started from the very beginning.
“To support Governor Morrisey and President Trump in this new focus on lethality and strength,” Seward said. “We will be, and I believe we are and we will continue to be the strongest military in the United States.”
Morrisey said he watched Seward’s military command first-hand during his initial few months in office when the Southern half of the state experienced some of the most devastating floods that have taken place here in a long time on February 14, 15 and 16.
Seward said he was in the state for the few days when the flooding occurred, and despite how tragic of a situation it was, he said it felt good to jump right in and immediately command and assist the Guard in the recovery efforts across the Southern Coalfields.
“It was really a great opportunity to get to know folks from Williamson to Welch, and see what our troops were doing on the ground,” he said.
Seward said the West Virginia National Guard will continue to support and serve its homeland as well as deploy to serve wherever and whenever they’re called upon.
“West Virginia is our homeland, and we will protect her like we protect our families,” Seward said. “The West Virginia National Guard is made up of folks from almost every community in this state, they still live in those communities and they represent those communities while they’re working and serving with the local officials, and that’s not going to change one bit under my leadership.”