More FTA: Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who have represented the Army, Navy, and Air Force have all been fired, resigned, or replaced under Hegseth.
General Charles Q. Brown, Jr., a Black fighter pilot who served as the Air Force's chief of staff and later became the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was fired last February and replaced with a white man. Admiral Lisa Franchetti, a white woman who also served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff as chief of naval operations, was also fired that month, replaced by a white man. General Randy A. George, chief of staff of the Army, was fired in April of this year. General David Allvin, the Air Force chief of staff, retired early last year. . . .
Heads of intelligence services too have left. Lieutenant-General Jeffrey Kruse, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was fired last year after his agency reported US air strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities had not been effective.
Other high-ranking personnel who have left under Hegseth include: General Chris Donahue, US Army commander Europe and Africa; General David Hodne, US Army commander of transformation and training command; General James Mingus, US Army vice chief of staff; Lieutenant-General Joseph McGee, director for strategy, plans and policy at the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield, US Navy representative to NATO; Rear Admiral Milton Sands, commander of Naval Special Warfare Command.
The sidelining of top-ranking women and minorities, experts say, will make others below them question whether they should be devoting decades more of their lives to an institution that could get rid of them because of their identity.
"It is far past time for President Trump to recognize the lasting harm that Pete Hegseth is inflicting on the Department of Defense," Senator Jack Reed, a former Army officer himself, said in a statement in response to news of Driscoll's resignation this week. "Secretary Hegseth is cultivating a culture where dissent is punished and competence is secondary to personal allegiance."
