LTC Jeff Van Sickle

LTC Jeff Van Sickle is an instructor in the Department of English & World Languages at the United States Military Academy , where he graduated n 2000 with a bachelor’s degree in French and Spanish and commissioned in the infantry. 

As an infantry officer, he served as a rifle platoon leader, battalion mortar platoon leader, and Long-Range Surveillance Detachment executive officer in the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vicenza, Italy (2001-04), and participated in the brigade’s airborne assault into northern Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He then completed the Special Forces Qualification Course and served as an Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) commander and future operations officer in 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, North Carolina (2005-08). As an ODA commander, he deployed twice to Afghanistan for Operation Enduring Freedom and once to Tombouctou, Mali, for Operation Enduring Freedom - Trans-Sahel.

LTC Van Sickle earned a master’s degree in European studies from Georgetown University in 2010 and became a European foreign area (FAO) officer. His first FAO assignment was as a French instructor in the Department of Foreign Languages from 2010 to 2013. He then worked at the U.S. embassies in Paris, France (2013-14), and Skopje, North Macedonia (2014-17), and later served as the Western Europe branch chief at U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, and director of European affairs at the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.

LTC Van Sickle is a graduate of the Infantry Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, the Infantry Mortar Leader Course, U.S. and French Airborne Schools, Ranger School, the Special Forces Qualification Course, the Military Freefall Basic Course, the Security Cooperation Management Overseas Course, and the Command and General Staff College. His awards and decorations include the Bronze Star Medal (2), the Defense Meritorious Service Medal (2), the Meritorious Service Medal (3), the Army Commendation Medal (5), the Afghanistan Campaign Medal (2), the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary and Service Medals, and the Combat and Expert Infantryman Badges.

He lives at West Point with his wife and three children.