Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked the Army’s top officer to step down and retire, defense officials said Thursday, an extraordinary move amid the war with Iran and the latest in a series of clashes between the Pentagon chief and the service’s senior leadership.
Gen. Randy George had been expected to hold the job of Army chief of staff for more than another year, until the fall of 2027, and complete what is typically a four-year assignment as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But Hegseth decided to go in another direction, representatives for the defense secretary said.
Two other Army generals were removed along with George, said two defense officials, who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the shake-up. They are Gen. David Hodne, who became the head of the service’s Training and Transformation Command in October, and Maj. Gen. William Green Jr., the chief of Army chaplains.
George’s retirement is “effective immediately,” Sean Parnell, a Hegseth spokesman, said in a terse statement posted on social media that also expressed gratitude for George’s “decades of service to our nation.”
“We wish him well in his retirement,” Parnell’s statement said.
Hegseth, a prolific social media user, did not immediately post his own sentiments about the general’s removal, first reported by CBS News. A spokesman for George could not be reached immediately for comment.
With George’s ouster, Hegseth has remade nearly the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff, a panel of senior military officers at the Pentagon that advises both the president and the secretary. The only ones remaining from when Hegseth took office in January 2025 are Gen. Eric M. Smith, commandant of the Marine Corps, and Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, head of the Space Force.
Early last year, the Trump administration fired Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Adm. Lisa Franchetti, head of the U.S. Navy; Adm. Linda Fagan, commandant of the Coast Guard; and Gen. James Slife, vice chief of staff of the Air Force. Hegseth later asked Gen. David Allvin, chief of staff of the Air Force, to retire early last fall.
In many cases, the firings and forced removals have occurred without explanation, though Hegseth has long criticized senior military leaders who championed diversity initiatives or exhibited what in his view was a lack of loyalty to President Donald Trump. A disproportionate number of those targeted by Hegseth have been women and minorities.
It was not immediately clear why Hegseth targeted George, Hodne and Green. Hodne was selected to lead an organization, Training and Transformation Command, that George had prioritized, while Hegseth has sought to upend how military chaplains minister to and support service members — and he has frequently touted Christianity. The Washington Post first reported the departures of Hodne and Green.
The generals’ abrupt dismissal occurred as the Army has sent a couple thousand soldiers to the Middle East for a possible ground operation in Iran. Disruptions of this nature, though not unheard of, are unusual during wartime.
Hegseth, a former mid-ranking Army National Guard officer who attained some celebrity in Republican circles while working as an on-air personality for Fox News, has shown a particular scorn for certain senior Army generals and has moved to oust or block the promotions of several whom he did not support.
In the process, he has clashed at times with Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, a fellow Army veteran and Trump political appointee who is close friends with Vice President JD Vance, current and former U.S. officials said.
“Hegseth can’t fire Driscoll,” one administration official said Thursday. “So he’s going to make his life hell.”
Hegseth’s past moves against Army leaders include stonewalling a promotion to four-star general for Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, who has since retired; bypassing the appointment of Gen. Christopher Donahue as the next head of U.S. European Command; demanding the firing of Col. David Butler, a top Army spokesman who has decided to retire; and forcing out the last vice chief of staff, Gen. James Mingus, several months early, officials have said.
All of those officers worked at some point for Gen. Mark A. Milley, who served as Army chief of staff and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Trump’s first term in office. While Trump selected Milley for the Pentagon’s top military job, the two clashed over numerous issues, turning Milley into a political target for Trump and Hegseth.
George, 61, was widely seen as a potential candidate to be fired by Hegseth because the general had served as then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s senior military assistant before becoming chief of staff of the Army in September 2023. Austin, himself a retired a four-star general, served as defense secretary under President Joe Biden.
But George survived for a time and worked to gain the confidence of new civilian leaders from the Trump administration, said current and former Army officials.
It was not immediately clear whom Hegseth intends to replace George, a career infantry officer who served multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. One possibility would appear to be Gen. Christopher LaNeve, who became the Army’s vice chief of staff in February after Hegseth appointed him to the role and he was confirmed by the Senate.
LaNeve last year served as Hegseth’s senior military assistant at the Pentagon, after Hegseth abruptly fired another officer, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short, who had held the role. Hegseth then forced out Mingus to put LaNeve in his current role.
Alex Horton contributed to this report.
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