Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s ousting of Army chief of staff Gen. Randy George is just the latest move in his effort to transform the department he has been tasked to lead.
With George’s forced retirement, the only members of the joint staff remaining from when Hegseth took office last January are Gen. Eric Smith, commandant of the Marine Corps, and Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations at Space Force.
Hegseth has long talked about his view that the military needs significant change to get back to its core missions and has tried to rectify those deficiencies by ridding the military of the officers whom he believes allowed that change to occur.
News that Hegseth asked George to retire effective immediately became public on Thursday. In addition to removing George, Hegseth also fired Gen. David M. Hodne, the head of the Army’s Transformation and Training Command, and Maj. Gen. William Green Jr., the Army’s top chaplain. The personnel decisions came as a surprise to Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll’s office, a U.S. official told the Washington Examiner.
George was nominated for the four-year term by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate in 2023, meaning he would have remained in the role until 2027 without Hegseth’s interference. George served as the senior military assistant to former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Hegseth’s predecessor, whom he has frequently criticized.
Hegseth has sought to remove leaders he felt were responsible for the diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts that he has sought to eradicate. He associates many of them with the previous administration. His frequent criticism of Austin and Biden — as well as his recent decision to overturn an Army decision to suspend the flight crews involved in an unauthorized visit to musician Kid Rock’s Nashville, Tennessee, home — have raised questions about the politicization of the military.
Top Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell did not explain in a statement why Hegseth fired George, but thanked him for his decades of service. The ouster came as the military is in its fifth week of war against Iran, with elements from the 82nd Army Airborne Division heading to the region to give President Donald Trump additional optionality.
Vice chief of staff of the Army, Gen. Christopher LaNeve, will serve as the acting chief of staff. His promotion to the vice position followed Gen. James Mingus’s early retirement from the role, when LaNeve was the senior military assistant to Hegseth. LaNeve replaced Air Force Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short, whom Hegseth also fired.
Hegseth laid out his vision for the military when he called them all to Quantico, Virginia, for an address in late September 2025, where he previewed additional military leadership changes. He has made his disdain for DEI well known, both broadly and within the military, prior to his confirmation as secretary of defense, and he has sought to rid the department of those policies from the beginning of his tenure.
“More leadership changes will be made, of that I’m certain, not because we want to but because we must. Once again, this is life and death. The sooner we have the right people, the sooner we can advance the right policies,” he said at the time. “Personnel is policy.”
Early in his tenure, Hegseth fired Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is black. Prior to becoming war secretary, Hegseth questioned Brown’s qualifications for the position due to his race. He also pushed Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to serve as chief of naval operations, and Adm. Linda Fagan, the former Marine Commandant.
He asked Gen. David Allvin, the former chief of staff of the Air Force, and Adm. Alvin Holsey, the commander of U.S. Southern Command, to retire early as well.
Other officials Hegseth has removed since assuming the position include: Gen. Timothy Haugh, then-director of the National Security Agency and head of U.S. Cyber Command; Navy Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, U.S. representative to the 32-member NATO Military Committee; and Gen. James Slife, Air Force Vice chief of staff.
“When I think about my career in uniform, in almost every instance where there has been poor leadership or people in positions they’re not qualified for, it was based on either the reality or the perception of a ‘diversity hire,’” Hegseth wrote in his 2024 book titled, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.
He also frequently derides the sentiment of “diversity is our strength” as the “single dumbest phrase in military history.”
Hegseth has also referenced his faith during briefings about the Iran war, which has garnered attention in religious communities.
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“Under just war theory, no,” Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the head of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, responded when asked if the war with Iran was justified in an interview on CBS News set to air this weekend. The war “anticipates a nuclear threat rather than responding to realized danger,” he added.
In his first monthly Christian worship service since the Iran war began, at the Pentagon on March 25, Hegseth said, “Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation,” adding, “Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”
