iNDICA News Bureau-
US Navy veteran Shanti Sethi, the first Indian American to command a U.S. Navy combat ship, has joined Vice-President Kamala Harris’s office as her executive secretary and defense advisor.
The news website Politico.com reported Monday that Harris’s senior advisor Herbie Ziskend confirmed the appointment of Sethi.
Sethi, who retired from the Navy with the rank of captain, was senior military advisor to Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro.
In her new role, she will coordinate National Security Advisor documentation across the office of the Vice-President.
Sethi commanded the guided-missile destroyer USS Decatur, with a crew of 281, including 33 commissioned officers, from December 2010 to May 2012.
She also became the first female commander of a U.S. naval vessel to visit India, taking her ship to Chennai in 2011.
She was also commanding officer of the Sixth Fleet’s Task Force 64 and the action officer coordinating joint and international policy for integrated air and missile defense across all military services, according to her LinkedIn profile, which has been updated to confirm her new position.
When Sethi joined the Navy in 1993, the combat exclusion law was still in effect so she was limited in what she could do. However, when she became an officer, the Exclusion Act was lifted.
“I was able to move on to have a career path that was much more open to me because I was going into this very male-dominated environment,” Sethi told USA Today in an interview last year.
Sethi’s father immigrated to the U.S. from India in the early 1960s. Harris is the first person of Indian origin to be elected vice-president of the United States.
