During Monday's ceremony on post, Major General Mark Milley relinquished control to Major General Stephen Townsend. Townsend had been serving as the director of the Pakistan/Afghsanistan Coordination Cell for the Joint Staff in Washington, D.C. He said his first job is preparing for planned deployments of parts of two brigades to Afghanistan this winter.

"We have First Brigade and Second Brigade Combat Teams taking specially task-organized teams of advisors to Afghanistan, to further our nation's efforts there. And that's my job one, is to get up to speed on that," he said.

Townsend has served at Fort Drum before, and he and Milley's careers have followed similar paths, with Townsend in 2009 taking over from Milley as deputy commanding general for operations of the 101st Airborne Division housed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.