JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska –
Long before he became the first Alaska National Guard combat rescue officer (CRO) in history to pin on a general star, Brig. Gen. Matthew Komatsu was a kid in the Midwest, mesmerized by Top Gun and dreaming of fighter jets.
“I was eight or nine when I saw the greatest recruiting propaganda in the nation’s history,” he said with a laugh. “I wanted to be a fighter pilot like Maverick.”
The dream carried him all the way to the U.S. Air Force Academy, but once there, reality arrived quickly. He struggled to fit in, chafing at the rigid environment.
“I realized pretty early I was a nonconformist, and it’s not a place that encourages that,” he said. “Those first four years, you’re becoming an adult and figuring things out. I barely hung on.”
After his first year, he flew gliders for a summer program and got airsick, and he began to suspect he wasn’t destined for the cockpit after all.
But the general also learned something else.
“I decided early on that I would be the prime mover in this whole equation. I learned what advice to take, and what advice to say, ‘Thank you,’ and discard. The direction my life would take was really on me.”
Komatsu was commissioned into the Air Force Office of Special Investigations after graduating in 1999. At the time, he viewed his five-year commitment as a launching pad to other federal service opportunities.
Then came the attacks of September 11, 2001.
“9/11 changed everything for me,” he said. “When I entered the Air Force, the idea of going to war was completely foreign. But on my first deployment to Bagram, standing at attention during a memorial ceremony, I had this realization out of the blue: This is what you’re going to do. You’re going to continue to serve.’”
That moment, unexpected and forceful, cemented his sense of purpose.
Still, it wasn’t until an enlisted OSI agent and friend mentioned pararescue that Komatsu discovered the path that would shape the rest of his life. Komatsu spent many of his weekends at his first duty station rock climbing and pouring himself into his physical fitness, and his friend took notice.
“He said, ‘They’re bringing officers into pararescue. Wouldn’t it be cool to do this and get paid for it?’” Komatsu recalled.
Curiosity became interest, and interest became action. Eight years into his career, he applied for the Combat Rescue Officer pipeline.
He said he knew the odds.
“Eighty-three percent of people who go through the PJ pipeline ring the bell,” he said, identifying how candidates signify their resignation from the course. “You just don’t quit. That’s what my dad distilled in me.”
Komatsu earned his Air Force Special Warfare beret in 2007. But stepping into a career field that had never been led by officers was tumultuous.
“The first few years were rocky,” he said. “PJs had never been led by officers. The role of a CRO was still being defined. It was contentious.”
His first deployment as a CRO, however, proved transformative. His small team filled in as MEDEVAC support for Army units in Afghanistan, giving him an up-close look at life-saving operations.
“The PJs I trained with put me on the crew, and I was able to fly missions with them,” he said. “The way they approached the division of labor between officer and enlisted set the tone for the rest of my career.”
On one mission responding to a Canadian convoy hit by insurgents, Komatsu offered to step off the helicopter to make room for additional medical specialists. His team refused.
“They told me, ‘Nope, you’re coming. You can work with the Canadian ground force commander and run that level of coordination.’”
That trust earned through time in the field shaped the leader he would become.
In 2011, Komatsu joined the Alaska Air National Guard’s 212th Rescue Squadron, the only unit in the Total Force that holds full-time alert due to Alaska’s extreme environment and vast search-and-rescue demands.
From 2011 to 2018, he deployed, flew missions, and led rescue Airmen in some of the harshest conditions on earth.
“Because of the path I took, coming to the Guard, being tactical and operational, and doing that all the way until I was a field grade officer, I’m closely connected to what it means to hack a mission out here,” he said. “Understanding that informs decision-making at this level.”
As the second National Guard CRO in history to wear a general star, Komatsu is focused on one thing: using his experience to serve Alaska and the nation. He considers that experience essential as Alaska becomes increasingly central to national defense. He focuses now on connecting people, widening the understanding of homeland defense in the Arctic, and strengthening the partnerships that will define future operations.
“From this seat being able to do this as not only a Guard officer, but an Alaksa National Guard officer, is important because if bad things happen up here, the integration between every level of the force has to be seamless,” he said. “I continue to look for opportunities to connect with the right people. And to make sure that as we think about the homeland defense mission within the Alaska theatre that we widen our perspective on what homeland defense means.”
The general is candid about the toll that the sacrifices over the course of his career have taken.
“There’s exposure to traumatic events. Those things change you at an individual and neurological level,” he said. “Professionally people see 1 percent of that. Your family sees the other 99.”
Two decades of rescue missions, combat deployments, and loss have shaped him as much as his achievements, and he refuses to gloss over that reality for younger Airmen.
“Nobody talked to me about the friends I’d lose, the dangers I’d encounter, or the toll it would take,” he said. “I want people to have an informed, complex understanding of military service.”
His answer, after everything, is simple.
“I want to honor the sacrifices my family has made by being a better husband and father. That’s the most meaningful thing I can do.”
It’s also driven his approach to leading Airmen.
“I can’t overstate the value of introspection,” he said. “If you don’t understand your strengths and weaknesses, you’re dangerous. I encourage my subordinates to prod me in areas I’m not aware of. I don’t want to be one of those leaders who says, ‘I am who I am, take it or leave it.”
Komatsu said he admires leaders like Gen. later President Dwight Eisenhower and Gen. Matthew Ridgeway, United Nations Command commander during the Korean War, not known as history’s flashier generals, but the ones who made organizations better.
“We need good people doing good things. It’s not always flashy, but it keeps the organization moving in the right direction.”
He insists he never viewed becoming a general as personal validation.
“I’ve met flag officers who fail to impress me, and others where I think, ‘Wow, I don’t know how you do what you do,’” he said. “I don’t view having a star on as being very special to me personally. Being positioned at the right time, right place, doing the right things put me in a position for this to happen.”
But he also understands the broader impact.
“I knew it would be meaningful for the career field and the Total Force,” he said.
Barriers existed for CROs and many doors simply weren’t open. But he kept preparing for the next thing, improving steadily, letting the work speak for itself.
The general’s path from a nonconformist cadet to a combat-tested rescuer to a National Guard general reflects a career built on introspection, perseverance, and service. And as he steps into his new role, he carries not just the weight of history, but the steady purpose of someone who has lived the mission at every level and is determined to leave Alaska, its Airmen and Soldiers, and its future stronger than he found it.
“I hope people remember me as someone they wanted to work with, for or above,” he said. “Someone with a nuanced view of service, who took everything into account. Someone pragmatic. Someone real.”