It’s an iconic image of the war on terrorism.
A single grainy figure, bathed in the green light of night-vision goggles, steps toward the back of an Air Force transport — the last American soldier to leave Afghanistan, one minute before President Joe Biden’s Aug. 31, 2021, deadline.
That soldier was Gen. Christopher Donahue, then the commander of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. He and his men had been deployed to Kabul on an emergency basis to protect Americans and their allies during the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
He is also the latest casualty of Pete Hegseth’s purge of senior leaders.
Donahue arrived in Afghanistan in the chaotic final days of the war, after the Afghan government fell. Encountering nearly complete chaos, he aggressively brought a degree of order.
He told military officials who investigated the withdrawal that he was blunt with the Taliban. “We told them that we would control the gates and they would push people out,” Donahue said. “We expressed that they will comply, because if they fight us on this, we would be able to kill more of them than they would ever hope to kill of us. After that their tone changed.”
The evacuation from Afghanistan was an immense tragedy. While Donahue was there, a suicide bomber killed 13 service members and about 170 Afghan civilians at the Abbey Gate. (Despite what you might hear, the gate was outside Donahue’s area of responsibility at the time of the bombing.) Thousands of American allies, including people who’d risked their lives serving alongside American troops, were left behind, and the Afghan people were plunged back into the oppression of Taliban rule.
That photograph, in which the commander is the last person to leave, like a captain who is the last to abandon a sinking ship, elevated Donahue’s profile, but it might have made him a target for those who wanted someone held accountable for the defeat in Afghanistan. As a senator in 2024, Markwayne Mullin, now the secretary of homeland security, briefly held up Donahue’s nomination to lead Army forces in Europe for this reason.
Donahue, however, was the wrong person to scapegoat. He’d earned praise and respect from Republicans and Democrats for his conduct during the retreat.
Beyond his service in Kabul, Donahue had a sparkling résumé. He’d commanded Delta Force, arguably the most elite branch of the Army’s Special Forces, and was instrumental in the fight to destroy the ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq. He also helped Ukraine plan its 2022 counteroffensive against Russia. But almost every senior general has a glittering résumé. The reactions to Donahue’s departure make clear that he wasn’t just accomplished; he was deeply respected and admired.
Writing in The Atlantic, Adm. William McRaven, the former commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, who directed the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, said that Donahue is “one of the most brilliant officers I know” and that “he has the respect of every man and woman who ever served with him.”
Gen. Mark Hertling, one of my commanders in Iraq during the surge, wrote in The Bulwark that Donahue “is not simply another general officer,” and he used the same word as McRaven: “respect.” Donahue had “earned the trust and respect of soldiers.”
Rich McCormick, a Republican member of the House, told The Washington Examiner that Donahue’s departure was “unfortunate.”
“I have mad respect for that guy,” McCormick said. “I don’t know the details, so I’m not going to continue to talk about it, because I don’t know. I don’t know him personally, but I have mad respect for the guy. He’s earned that. Great leader.”
But there was one other part of Donahue’s résumé — something that would raise the hackles of an administration that believes it’s purging the woke corruption of the Biden military. In 2023 he contradicted Republican claims that wokeness had overtaken the military. He told an interviewer, “We’re focused on people, war fighting and making sure that we’re prepared for the next fight. There ain’t no ‘woke’ here.”
We don’t know precisely why Donahue is leaving. A technical explanation is that his command in Europe was downsizing to a three-star position and he, as a four-star general, had nowhere else to go. The problem, as The Washington Post reported, was that Hegseth “stonewalled” efforts to keep him. The message was clear: Hegseth wanted him gone.
Donahue is the latest in a long line of generals and admirals the Trump administration has removed, without explanation and without any evidence of misconduct. Some were obvious political targets, and the list is heavily weighted toward women and minorities.
President Trump, for example, fired Gen. Charles Brown Jr, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (and the second Black officer to hold that post) after Hegseth accused Brown of — you guessed it — being too “woke.”
Donahue’s departure, however, seems to have touched a particular nerve, and I think I know why. It’s a matter of both timing and principle.
Donahue is leaving just as the impact of Trump’s corruption and Hegseth’s partisanship and incompetence is becoming obvious to the American people, in matters both large and small. In scandal after scandal, incident after incident, the same message is sent: The morale, effectiveness and integrity of the American military are under siege.
Trump launched a war without public support, prosecuted it sporadically and incompetently and seems to be on the verge of handing Iran a strategic victory.
Even worse, it seems with every passing week we’re learning that the war was less one-sided than we were told. Last Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that there was extensive damage to an important American naval base in Bahrain, far more damage than the administration had said.
According to the Journal, the administration asked commercial satellite companies to limit access to imagery of the damaged bases. And it still hasn’t disclosed to Congress the total cost of the damage. In other words, while we inflicted enormous damage on Iran, the public still doesn’t know how much damage Iran inflicted on us.
A flu outbreak is less consequential than a war, but it’s symbolic nonetheless. In April, Hegseth made the vaccine optional for all units. The results were entirely predictable. After 275 people at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas fell ill with the flu, the Pentagon reinstated mandatory flu vaccines.
It’s hard to imagine any Pentagon leader scorning vaccines after experiencing the incredibly close quarters of military life. In the absence of robust public health measures, a military base can be a breeding ground for infectious disease.
And we cannot forget the ongoing war, also undeclared, against people suspected of trafficking drugs in the Caribbean. Increasingly, the evidence seems to point to American strikes costing innocent lives.
The man tasked to lead the American military — to advance its mission and its values — is putting considerable moral pressure on the United States military.
And we can’t forget that if there were any justice or real accountability, he wouldn’t be in the job. When he shared sensitive information about upcoming American military strikes against the Houthis in 2025, he not only risked the lives of American service members; he committed an act that would have destroyed the career of virtually any uniformed member of the military. Nevertheless, he survived.
It might seem basic to say this, but when Hegseth began his term as secretary of defense, he inherited a military that had already been shaped and formed by generations of training and moral formation. Even a person as powerful as a secretary of defense can’t transform an institution’s DNA overnight.
Think of the military as a big ship controlled by a small rudder. The ship responds to the rudder, but not immediately and not obviously. But given even a moderate amount of time, the direction of the turn is clear.
And that brings us to the principle of the matter. The administration’s treatment of Donahue removes any remaining doubt that in Hegseth’s version of a meritocracy, there is no level of excellence that can trump politics.
It is difficult to overstate how much that principle will cripple a military in a democracy. If the Trump administration is now punishing generals for following the orders of his predecessor (by, for example, executing orders to withdraw from Afghanistan or to place a greater emphasis on diversity in the ranks), regardless of the quality of their performance, over time you’ll create an atmosphere of institutional fear that can — and probably will — yield paralysis or serial cronyism.
Worst of all, politicizing the military will break its bond with the American people. The military is one of the last remaining institutions in the United States still holding on to the public’s respect, in part because of its commitment to professional excellence but also because it is seen as apolitical and fair. It’s arguably the most successful institution in American life that truly models the immense diversity of American life.
It isn’t a Praetorian Guard for the president and his party. It’s a citizen army that draws its members from across the whole of society.
The Trump administration owes the military and the public an explanation for its treatment of Donahue — and an explanation for its treatment of other senior officers it has fired or forced out. As commander in chief, the president has the right to fire an officer, but as a servant of the people, the president has a duty to tell us why.
In the meantime, Americans are right to be alarmed. A failed war. A purge of officers. Potential war crimes. Each of these things should be a stark warning that the Trump administration is in the process of breaking one of America’s most vital institutions.
That institution can hold. As I’ve seen firsthand, it’s not perfect, but its commitment to integrity runs deep. It cannot hold forever, however. In a previous column, I referred to an old remark about the allied armies in World War I. They were “lions led by donkeys.” The ordinary soldier’s extraordinary courage was squandered through futile tactics and foolish strategies.
Place the donkeys in charge long enough, and you start to change the character of the military itself. The donkey in chief is placing the effectiveness, morale and integrity of the American military under siege, and we’re watching exactly what happens when the lions are forced to leave.
It’s not an image I want to see.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.
The post The Purging of General Donahue Is a Breaking Point appeared first on New York Times.
