The Stephen and Jane Poss Distinguished Churchill Lecture

Dr. Henry J. “Jerry” Hendrix, PhD

Dr. Henry J. “Jerry” Hendrix, PhD, is a retired United States Navy Captain and naval flight officer, having served 26 years on active duty following his commissioning through the Navy ROTC program at Purdue University. During his career Hendrix served in a variety of maritime patrol aviation squadrons as well as on supercarriers, including the USS Theodore Roosevelt, and light amphibious assault ships. He was deployed to the Mediterranean, Red Sea, North Atlantic, Caribbean, and Persian Gulf. He served as the Commander of Tactical Air Support Squadron 11. His shore duty assignments were as a strategist on the staffs of the Chief of Naval Operations, the Secretary of the Navy, the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and within the Office of Net Assessment. Through these tours Dr. Hendrix established a reputation for using history to illuminate current strategic challenges, and published numerous articles on rebuilding and modernizing the Navy. He has twice been named the Samuel Eliot Morison Scholar by the Naval Historical Center. After his retirement from the Navy following a standout tour as the Director of the Navy History and Heritage Command, he has worked as a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and as a vice president at a Washington, DC defense consultancy. Dr. Hendrix holds a bachelor’s degree from Purdue University in political science, a masters in national security affairs from the Naval Postgraduate School, a masters in history from Harvard University, and a PhD in war studies from Kings College, London. He is the author of numerous professional articles and essays as well as the 2009 book Theodore Roosevelt's Naval Diplomacy and the 2020 book To Provide and Maintain a Navy--Why Naval Primacy is America's First, Best Strategy. He currently serves the Sagamore Institute as a senior fellow, exploring the national security challenges facing the United States.