Pentagon Purge Deepens: Army Chief and Two Generals Forced Out

Hegseth moves to align military leadership with Trump’s strategic vision amid sweeping shake-up

By Abdullahi Yusuf

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has forced out the Army’s top general and dismissed two additional senior commanders in a single day, marking the latest in a sweeping purge of military leadership under the Trump administration.

General Randy A. George, the 41st Chief of Staff of the Army, was asked to step down and retire immediately, the Pentagon announced Thursday. “The Department is grateful for General George’s decades of service to our nation. We wish him well in his retirement,” said Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell.

CBS News, citing sources familiar with the decision, reported that Hegseth wanted someone in the role who would more fully implement President Trump’s vision for the Army.

George had served as Army chief of staff since September 2023, well short of the standard four-year term.

He previously served as a senior military assistant to then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin under the Biden administration.

Two additional generals were dismissed the same day, according to three U.S. officials. Major General William Green Jr., the Army’s chief of chaplains and its top religious leader, who oversaw the Army Chaplain Corps and advised senior leadership on religious, moral and morale matters, was removed alongside Major General David Hodne, who led the Army’s Transformation and Training Command.

Hodne is a combat-experienced infantry officer who previously commanded the 4th Infantry Division and served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and had been involved in shaping Army training, readiness and modernization. Their simultaneous removal signals changes across both the operational and institutional layers of Army leadership.

The dismissals continue a pattern of senior military firings under Hegseth. Earlier in Trump’s second term, he removed Air Force Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, following an assessment suggesting that U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities were more limited than Trump had claimed.

He also fired Navy Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield, the U.S. military representative to NATO’s military committee, citing a “loss of confidence in her leadership.”

Other dismissals carried out by Hegseth include Joint Chiefs Chairman General CQ Brown Jr., Air Force General Timothy Haugh, who led U.S. Cyber Command and directed the National Security Agency, and Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Linda Fagan.