Lieutenant Colonels Kathryn M. (left) and Nicole M. Navin. (Courtesy Fred Borch)
Sister Services
Having examined eight Army generational relationships, this article looks at two other family connections that deserve to be highlighted: the Air Force Judge Advocate General with an Army judge advocate son and two identical twin sisters—one in the Marine Corps and one in the Air Force—who are connected with the Regiment because both sisters earned their LL.M . degrees in the Graduate Course.
Sisters: Lieutenant Colonels Kathryn M. and Nicole M. Navin
The Navin sisters were born and raised in Kenosha, Wisconsin. While they are identical twins, Nicole is older than her sister by two minutes. Kathryn “Kate” Navin earned her law degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1999; she had previously been commissioned as a Marine Corps second lieutenant in 1998. Kate Navin chose to be a Marine because she thought being a Marine “would be the biggest challenge . . . both physically and mentally.”16 She writes that she “thought briefly about the Air Force, but the physical requirements, training, and challenge of being a Marine was what drew me to the Marine Corps.”17
After completing The Basic School at Quantico, Virginia, and the Naval Justice School in Newport, Rhode Island, Kate Navin was designated a Marine judge advocate in 2000. She then served in a variety of assignments, including a thirteen-month deployment in 2007 with Multinational Forces West to Al Anbar Province, Iraq. Then-Major Navin’s connection with our Corps occurred in 2009, when she was a student in the 58th Graduate Course. After graduating in 2010 with a specialty in contract and fiscal law, she served as Procurement Counsel, Western Area Counsel Office, Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California. Later that year, she deployed with U.S. Central Command’s (CENTCOM) Contracting Command in support of I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), Camp Leatherneck, Iraq.
Lieutenant Colonel Navin finished out her career in the Marine Corps as the SJA, Marine Corps Recruit Depot Paris Island/Eastern Recruiting Region, and as the Deputy Branch Head for Civil and Administrative Law, Judge Advocate Division, Headquarters, Marine Corps in the Pentagon. She retired in 2019.18
Her sister, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Nicole R. Navin, took a very different path as a judge advocate. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater in 1996, Nicole Navin enlisted in the Air Force and served as a Chinese Linguist at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, from 1997 to 2001. After leaving active duty, she entered law school at Florida State University; she graduated in 2004. Nicole then joined the Air Force JAG Corps because she “enjoyed it based on my previous experience” as an Air Force service member.19 She subsequently served in a variety of assignments, including: Assistant SJA, 1st Fighter Wing, Langley AFB; Area Defense Counsel, Langley, AFB; and DSJA, 52d Fighter Wing, Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany. Then-Major Navin made her connection with our Corps when she spent a year in the 62d Graduate Class from 2013 to 2014. After obtaining her LL.M., with a specialty in contract and fiscal law (like her sister), Nicole Navin worked briefly as the Chief, Fraud Remedies Branch, Air Force Legal Operations Agency, Andrews Air Base, Maryland, before deploying to Camp As Sayliyah, Qatar, as the Assistant CJA, CENTCOM Joint Theater Support Contracting Command. Today, Lieutenant Colonel Navin is the BJA, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Naval Support Activity, Bethesda, Maryland.20
Father-son: Lieutenant General Christopher F. Burne and CPT Christian R. Burne
Lieutenant General Christopher F. Burne and CPT Christian R. Burne. (Courtesy Fred Borch)
Christopher F. Burne had a long and distinguished career as an Air Force lawyer, culminating in his service as the Air Force Judge Advocate General from 2014 to 2018. Burne was directly commissioned in the Air Force after graduating from law school in 1983, and he served in a number of increasingly important assignments, including: DSJA, Western Space and Missile Center, Vandenberg Air Force Base (AFB); SJA, 32d Fighter Group, Soesterberg Air Base, Netherlands; SJA, 20th Fighter Wing, Shaw AFB, South Carolina; SJA, 8th Air Force, Barksdale AFB, Louisiana; and SJA Air Combat Command, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia. Lieutenant General Burne retired in 2018.
His son, CPT Christian R. Burne, commissioned through the Army ROTC at the University of Scranton in 2014. He then obtained an educational delay to attend law school at Dickenson in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. After graduating in 2017, Christian Burne commissioned as a judge advocate first lieutenant and entered our Corps. He finished the 205th JAOBC in May 2018 and was assigned to XVIII Airborne Corps, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Burne is now deployed to Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, where he serves as an operational law attorney with Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve.21 TAL