The Frontlines of Care
As one of the military’s highest-ranking medical officers, Air Force Major General Jeannine Ryder ’91 has a critical mission: saving lives.
Summer 2025
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On the evening of September 11, 2001, as much of the nation sat stunned and weeping before television screens, Major General Jeannine Ryder—then a young Air Force captain—received a call that would test her mettle in a time of crisis. Her commander summoned her to Dover Air Force Base, home to the US military’s largest mortuary, where she was to lead a team of medics in the duty of identifying victims of the attack on the Pentagon. With Americans still reeling from the deadliest terrorist attack on domestic soil, Ryder marshaled her team, guided them in grief through their urgent responsibility, and fulfilled the crucial mission of the moment. The weight of the experience set a course for the rest of her life. “I knew from then on,” Ryder said, “that my job was to save every casualty we could.”
It’s this combination of commitment, compassion, and resolve that has defined Ryder’s thirty-four-year military career, in which, among many other positions, she has previously served as chief nurse of the Air Force Nurse Corps. Today, Ryder occupies two of the most critical health care leadership roles in the United States military. As director of Defense Health Network Continental, she oversees a $1.1 billion budget and twenty-six military hospitals and clinics across the country that care for more than half a million patients, including active duty service members and veterans. But Ryder’s responsibilities stretch far beyond health care administration. In her role as commander of Medical Readiness Command Bravo, she prepares Air Force medical teams for deployment to conflict zones around the world. As global tensions rise and conflicts grow more complex, Ryder’s job is to ensure that military medical personnel—including doctors, medics, and lab technicians—are ready to respond however needed, whether that means performing air evacuations, responding to emergencies in flying intensive care units, or delivering lifesaving care on the ground under the most extreme conditions. “It’s about organizing, training, and equipping, to make sure that we have the right force for the next fight,” Ryder said, speaking from the Defense Health Agency headquarters just outside of Washington, DC. “When our medical personnel step off the plane, they need to be ready.”
Ryder said she was instilled with a strong sense of responsibility and caring for others while growing up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Her father, a high school principal, would show up early to greet teachers and students, while her grandfather, a first-generation Italian American and state legislator, cared for Ryder’s grandmother, a former nurse, after a debilitating stroke.
At Boston College, where she studied nursing, Ryder found a community that shared her values of hard work and integrity. “The instructors didn’t coddle us. We had hard clinical assignments,” she recalled of her training at local hospitals. It was also at BC that Ryder met an Air Force recruiter who offered her an intensive six-month obstetrics internship as part of her enlistment. “I wanted to gain clinical experience and grow as an independent person,” said Ryder, who took her enlistment oath in the living room of her six-person BC Mod, number 37A, on the morning of the Commencement Ball. “There was a crew of us there to support her,” recalled Patty Leyden Paul, Ryder’s then-roommate and a close friend today. Paul said Ryder, besides being a fun and supportive friend, was already showing leadership qualities. She was the one who woke up before everybody else to exercise, head to work, or study, Paul said. “There was a maturity to her. She was your wing woman.”
At the end of her Air Force internship—and after marrying her husband, Terry, with whom she now has three children—Ryder was deployed to Germany, where she quickly distinguished herself in a high-volume maternity ward. It wound up being the first stop in a long and successful career. Ryder has received two dozen assignments, including deployments to command medical operations in Southwest Asia and Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom, which followed the 9/11 attacks. She was part of the first medical evacuation piloted by American-trained Afghans, and earned a Bronze Medal, awarded for achievement in combat zones.
Her success was no surprise, said Lieutenant Colonel Kathy Conrad, who oversaw Ryder’s Air Force recruitment. “I knew even then—this woman was going places,” Conrad said. “She can be tough, and she’s not afraid to confront people who aren’t doing the right thing. But she’s also understanding and an excellent communicator.”
Ryder’s responsibilities have evolved along with the world and the military. For instance, today her charge includes providing medical care at some of the most highly classified workplaces in the country: United States Space Force installations, where military and civilian personnel monitor satellites and cybersecurity, among other duties. Ryder, a marathoner, said her greatest professional challenge is staying two steps ahead. What will global conflicts look like in the future, and what tools and training will medics need to respond? To prepare, she’s championing new training technologies, such as virtual reality simulations, and the development of enhanced equipment and supplies to support the agility of the Air Force’s mobile medical teams.
The responsibility is great, but Ryder said it’s nothing compared with serving her country and saving the lives of those who protect it. “We have,” she said, “the best job in the world.” 
