In December 2003,[1][2] Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld named Altenburg as the appointing authority for military commissions covering detainees at Guantanamo.

[3] Altenburg grew up in Dayton, Ohio, where he attended Chaminade High School, before his parents moved to Detroit, Michigan in his senior year.

He helped demonstrate the ability of Army units to maintain proper discipline in a combat theatre when his office tried three general courts-martial near the front lines the day before the ground assault into Iraq.

As the Staff Judge Advocate of the XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg he deployed to south Florida in 1992 for humanitarian relief operations after Hurricane Andrew.

During his three years at Fort Bragg, he was instrumental in resolving land use issues and protecting the Army's interests by working closely with the Fayetteville City Council and the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners.

He played a key negotiating and coordinating role in effecting the eventual purchase of 10,000 acres (40 km2) of additional training land contiguous to Fort Bragg.

He was one of several key JAG Corps leaders who helped transform the practice of law in the Army by insisting that lawyers acquire soldier skills and immerse themselves in their clients' business to become more effective advocates.

[4] The Bradley Chair was established in 2002 as a joint academic chair offering a visiting scholar the opportunity to encourage civilian-military dialogue and share lessons on leadership, globalization, technology, and cultural change with students and faculty at Dickinson College, the Army War College, and Penn State University's Dickinson School of Law.