Jamica LaSonde was born in Iron Mountain, Michigan and joined the United States Army in 1998 after being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Military Police Corp. Over her ten-year career, she served as a platoon leader, supply officer, assistant operations officer, provost marshal and company commander of a US military detention facility and staff officer at a four star combatant command headquarters. Her duty locations included Fort McClellan, Alabama, Fort Hood, Texas, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, Manheim, Germany, and Offutt AFB, Nebraska. During her career as a military police officer, she also supported missions in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq.
In 2008, Ms LaSonde resigned her active duty commission and started her second career employed as a civilian by the United States Air Force and US Strategic Command supporting the command’s mission to deter strategic attack and employ forces, as directed, to guarantee the security of our Nation and our Allies. Ms LaSonde’s current assignment is as the division chief for the Deterrence Analysis and Research Division with the USSTRATCOM Policy and Plans Director (J5). Among her key responsibilities are providing deterrence analysis expertise and products for strategy, plans, assessment, and professional development and analyzing existing and future strategies, policy and planning concepts by conducting experiments, war games, and other evaluations. Additionally, Ms LaSonde promotes the conduct of research to explore the Command’s theory of deterrence and developing a broader appreciation for deterrence challenges while encouraging innovative thinking to address the complex problem of strategic deterrence. Ms LaSonde is married to Dale LaSonde and they have three children.