Husband succeeds wife as head of USAF squadron

A colonel from Peterson Air Force Base who’s moving on to a new assignment has been replaced by her spouse.

Officials said this week that Col. Jennie Johnson has turned over the 302nd Operations Support Squadron to her husband, Lt. Col. Christopher Lay.

Col. Kurt D. Jones, who presided over the July 14 change-of-command ceremony, says it might be the first time one spouse succeeded another in the U.S. military. Air Force officials at the Pentagon said Thursday they were attempting to verify that.

Johnson’s new assignment is deputy commander of a C-130 cargo plane training detachment at Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas.

The operations support squadron that her husband now commands handles flight operations, war plans, air crew schedules and other responsibilities for C-130s.