Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ousted the Army chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, four U.S. military officials said.
Chief Defense Department spokesperson Sean Parnell confirmed George’s departure in a statement Thursday on X, saying George, the Army's top officer, would be “retiring from his position as the 41st Chief of Staff of the Army effective immediately.”
“The Department of War is grateful for General George’s decades of service to our nation. We wish him well in his retirement,” Parnell added.
Hegseth has long eyed removing George, who took the chief post in September 2023. He has removed other senior officials he believes are associated with previous administrations. George was senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin during the Biden administration.
Hegseth asked George to retire effective immediately. It is unclear who will serve as Army chief; Hegseth had recently pushed to install Gen. Christopher LaNeve as the vice chief of the Army, and two officials have said Hegseth made the move to prepare LaNeve to ultimately take over as chief.
George's firing stemmed in part from Hegseth’s long-running grievance with the Army and its leadership and his troubled relationship with Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, two U.S. officials and a former official told NBC News. George and Driscoll had been allies, and George had been expected to serve until the end of summer 2027, the officials said.
George’s departure comes as Trump is fighting a war in Iran, with no clear indication when the conflict will end. Trump delivered a prime-time address Wednesday that largely rehashed points he has made since the war began Feb. 28, saying that he expects it to end “shortly” but that there will be more strikes before then. CBS first reported the firing.
According to three U.S. officials, Hegseth fired two other Army generals Thursday: the chief of chaplains, Maj. Gen. William Green, and the commanding general of Army Transformation and Training Command, David Hodne.
Hegseth has fired numerous officials during Trump's second term. Last year he fired Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, after an initial assessment by the agency in June indicated that U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities were less expansive than Trump had said.
Before that, Hegseth fired Navy Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, who was the U.S. military representative to NATO’s military committee. Parnell at the time cited “a loss of confidence in her ability to lead.”
Hegseth's other firings included Joint Chiefs Chairman CQ Brown Jr.; Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh, who headed the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command; the Navy’s top admiral, Lisa Franchetti; and the head of the Coast Guard, Adm. Linda Fagan.
