ABC News exclusive: Gen. CQ Brown, America's top military official, talks Iran, Israel, Trump and more

Gen. CQ Brown Jr., the country's top military officer, is an experienced U.S. Air Force fighter pilot who has surmounted many challenges in his nearly 40-year career, including once having to eject and land in the Florida Everglades, an experience that earned him the call sign «Swamp Thing.»

«I didn't see any gators, so that was good,» Brown said with a smile as he recounted the incident to ABC News «This Week» co-anchor Martha Raddatz in an exclusive interview that aired Sunday, in which Brown looked back at his work so far — and what's ahead.

«That must have been quite the experience,» Raddatz told Brown as she asked about what he lived through as a young captain in January 1991, when the F-16 he was flying over Florida caught on fire after being struck by lightning.

«A little bit,» the general replied. «But all your training kicks in and the checklist says if fire persists — eject. It was a pretty easy decision.»

Brown continued to rise through the ranks, assuming the Air Force's top jobs in the Middle East and the Pacific and then becoming the Air Force chief of staff before being nominated by President Joe Biden last year to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was overwhelmingly confirmed in September.

There's been much to do since then: Brown has worked nearly nonstop in dealing with overlapping crises that have consumed the Middle East after Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel sparked a war just days after he took his new post.

The United States has sought to contain the Israel-Hamas war from mushrooming into a regional conflict. But that has become more of a challenge as Iranian-backed fighters in Iraq, Syria and Yemen continue to launch attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea and on American