Pete Hegseth set to fire generals and senior officers
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is still focused on getting rid of generals, admirals, senior officers, etc., who played a role in DEI and other woke initiatives. Hegseth previously stated that woke officials needed to be removed and that the military’s focus should be on defense. The Pentagon also drew up a list of probationary employees in response to a DOGE request. DOGE is also in the process of setting up inside the Pentagon.
From ABC News:
“First of all, you’ve got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs,” Hegseth said in an appearance on the “Shawn Ryan Show.”
“But any general that was involved — general, admiral, whatever — that was involved in any of the DEI woke s— has got to go,” he continued. “Either you’re in for warfighting, and that’s it. That’s the only litmus test we care about.”
However, on his first day at the Pentagon as secretary, Hegseth seemed to soften in regard to Gen. C.Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On Jan. 27, Brown saluted Hegseth as his motorcade arrived, then shook his hand as the two exchanged pleasantries. With Brown by his side, Hegseth approached a line of reporters and took several questions, including one on whether he intends to fire the general.
“I’m standing with him right now,” Hegseth said, patting Brown on the shoulder. “I look forward to working with him.”
It is not clear whether Brown is on the list.
The list follows multiple U.S. officials telling ABC News that the Pentagon submitted a separate list of probationary DOD employees to the Trump administration’s Office of Personnel Management who could be terminated, along with requests to exempt specific offices and people from being cut.
Being considered mission-critical is one reason for suggested exemption, but veteran and military spouse status is also being taken into account, according to one of the officials. The process of identifying exemptions and cuts is underway, but it is unclear when these employees could begin receiving notice they are being fired.
Additional Reading:
Bertrand, N. & Britzky, H. (2025, February 19). Defense officials fear impending Pentagon firings could break law and hurt military readiness. CNN. Link.
Copp, T. (2025, February 18). DOGE is getting lists of the military’s probationary workers from the Pentagon. AP News. Link.
Martinez, L., Seyler, M., Scott, R. & Faulders, K. (2025, February 20). Hegseth could soon fire or remove generals and senior officers, US officials say. ABC News. Link.
Category: Big Pentagon, Military issues
I do believe we could cull thru at least half of the Generals in the Five (5) Sided Puzzle Palace and still have too many. Seems like I read somewhere that we have more GO/Flag Ossifers now than we had at the height of WWII. And yep…if you’re woke you gotta go, bloke.
All of this “wokeness” started with the JEF…and a fake birth certificate.
Give ’em Hell, Pete!
Hate to disagree KoB, but it started at least with blowjob willie… though it damn sure accelerated under the JEF
Reckon you’re correct on BJ Willie, Fyr…on the starting of it. Didn’t Willie bring about that whole DADT thing? I’ll admit that during those years most of the news about him that I was paying any resemblance of attention to was all of his shenanigans with the various Ms Thangs he was banging. Plus my disgust with the Bosnia/Serbia fiasco. I felt we had little to no business involved there, but then again, I have felt for DECADES that we shouldn’t be meddling elsewhere.
I’ll also agree with Andy11M that a lot of senior enlisted need to go. Getting rid of them will go along with the Flags and their bloated staffs.
I’m with you on that FF, as soon as the Clinton Curse began when I was on AD in the early 90’s, I knew that my ETS date couldn’t come soon enough!
How about some of those SGMs sitting in all those G shops doing jobs that some E7 or E8 (or even some motivated E6) could do just as well.
Over the years I’ve seen a LOT of E7s and sometimes E6s doing the job of an E 8-9, and a lot of times doing it better, just not getting the $.
OH, and NO WAY in hell were they gonna get the BSM, MSM or DSM because of their lowly rank statuses. Regardless of the work and proficiency with which they did it.
“How about some of those SGMs sitting in all those G shops doing jobs that some E7 or E8 (or even some motivated E6) are already doing while the E9 holds the slot.” FIFY.
This is factually incorrect and not even close. During the height of WWII we had about 2000 general officers serving or about 1 general for every 6000 soldiers. There were nearly a hundred Divisions at the time (which was the goal).
A typical WWII Division was about 15k soldiers with around 10k of them being infantry. Today a Brigade Combat Team has 4500 soldiers with about 1.5k being support soldiers. The ratio really hasn’t changed much.
Today we are limited to a maximum of 219 active duty general officers. The ratio however is quite different with about one for every 2000 soldiers. However, you have to keep in mind that the number of Generals in service support roles such as Material Command, TRADOC and other major commands won’t expand significantly even if the Army grew suddenly. All the new GO positions would go into new units as needed, so that the Army could expand. The number of general officer ratios look more like a pre-WWII (1938) Army.
If your observation is that there are too many generals than this could be, although it is unlikely. 219 isn’t that many when you think about the size of the army and what it is expected to do.
I was referring to 4 star ranks. We only had 7 (Army/Army Air Forces) during WWII. We have 40+ 4 star /Flag ranks) now…each with their accompanying staffs and camp followers. You can’t tell me that we could do away with a few of them. No clue on current “staff” requirements that each have, but one would think that it would be a fairly decent sized number.
Think it was one of the 2 Star characters in WEB Griffin’s “Brotherhood of War” Series that made this comment to a group of 06’s that had just reported to “Charm School” upon receipt of their star…”If the aircraft bringing you here had of crashed with no survivors, we could have reached into the pool of Colonels and replaced all 30 of you…”
The Army doesn’t have that many. To clarify, The 41 O-10s include ALL services today and the seven that we had in WWII was just the Army plus the Army Air Corps.
Just the Army currently has 11 billets for O-10s, of which 9 are currently filled. They also are holding three spots in joint and unified commands such as USSOCOM for a total of 14 (12 filled). Of those 14 most didn’t exist or were of lower grade during WWII.
For example the National Guard Bureau Chief used to be a 1 Star spot when created, was a 2 star in WWII. These days however all TAGs are 2 Stars now so the position was elevated to four stars. Since they are responsible for coordinating 300k troops and 51 2 Star Generals this kind of makes sense.
Of the 14 slots you could probably get rid of four. For example the Vice Chiefs are four stars and this seems over the top to me. Futures Command doesn’t really need that much brass either, their budget however is very large. Lastly the mission in Africa has been a failure and I don’t see the need, but I understand the argument. Still I would recommend 10. If ten seems too much, just remember we had 2000 generals in WWII and they pretty much just worked in 2 major theaters.
What? The Pentagon is a top heavy, bloated feeding trough for officers with scrambled eggs on their covers and stars on their shoulders? Imagine my surprise…
What’s the over/under on billions saved by DOGE by putting the Pentagon under a microscope? We might save enough to give service members decent housing/BAH rates, and dinning halls they need.
JEF? What does that stand for?
“Jug-Eared Fuck” – it refers to Obama.
We could go with B. Hussein Obama, the chosen one, Big Mike’s wife, Zero… so many options for the one who would destroy error, ” fundamentally remake” America..
Barry Sotero.
Oh yeah, that was when he claimed to be a foreign student to commit fraud and get financial aid..
O’Bozo and Michael
Don’t forget SCOAMF.
Barry Zero, Zero-Bama, …………..to name a few more.
Obummer
In related news, Hegseth is ordering the Pentagon to cut 8% per year over the next 5 years in order to better align with Trump’s priorities. Some may go back into Trump priorities like an “Iron Dome” for the US:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hegseth-orders-pentagon-make-plans-major-budget-cuts-align-trump-doge-priorities
I’m grabbing popcorn for this one..
There’s probably at least 8% in the DoD lost to FWA. Is this a “cut” or a cull? Time will tell.
Unless DOGE has magic computers a 40% cut is impossible. My guess is a huge chunk will come out of RDT&E. My last assignment was in Test and I have to say it was over resourced by at least half. For 2.5 years I worked for a total of about 2.5 months and it certainly wasn’t difficult. I recommended that they eliminate my position when I left. I think they expanded instead.
My BIL worked for a contractor who shall remain nameless and realized they were cheating on the contract in 2021. He also knew that if he reported it, he would be out of work but under the rules he would entitled to a portion of the amount recovered. Heresy, but he said the IG at his installation told him that they didn’t want to hurt the company because so many retired military members worked there and they dropped the whole thing. He works elsewhere now though. So, yeah lots of FAW out there, getting it through the system is a whole other thing.
That 8% could probably be cut from Army Material Command alone. It’s way too big, way overstaffed at the top, and is full of kingdom builders. Full Disclosure: I work for AMC.
They are quartered in my state and I used to work next door to their Royal HQs. It’s the size of a small city and always growing.
Yeah. We’ve been on a hiring plan of 1 new hire for every 3 losses. More often than not, we don’t get that 1. APG gets the slot and we’re left sucking wind.
So I read a story that Hegseth’s two lead planners are a bit hawkish on China, hate Europe, and think the Army is too big.
From the Army perspective they want to get rid of all the equipment upgrades currently in the production line (not sure if this includes the new Battle Rifle, and the Booker Tank), Delete EUCOM as a COCOM, and downsize the number of Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) to include getting rid of all the Striker Brigades. Oh, and the A-10s from the Air Force.
To me this completely goes against Secretary Hegseth’s main objective: Win through Strength! You can’t win with a starving crippled warrior and a bunch of gnats buzzing around.
The Army was already eliminating BCTs due to lack of interest in service.
Take their perfume too!
Having recently entered the world of the Department of the Army Civilian (DAC) I’m conflicted.
In my last job before I retired, we were so undermanned in DACs we were actually about 20 man-years behind in keeping up the minimum load in updating the materials under our purview. The directorate had already absorbed so many cuts they had to use one less riser for our group photo. On the other hand, 20 percent of those guys did 80 percent of the heavy lifting.
Now I’m a probationary DAC who may get sacked even though I work all day every day (it’s lunch time right now!), in a job where all of us work a full day and are already short-manned despite a directed manning ratio which is already bad and we already know will get worse in a few years.
Call me crazy but it would be far better to take some time and apply actual leadership to the situation by assigning directed percentage cuts to commands and then firing those that need firing—regardless of time in position. I can tell you with confidence my skills, experience and work ethic are more relevant and far outstrip many who are safely ensconced in their job and not getting cut.
Can any General that can’t bench press 225.
You so funny! You make JOKE?
I lost a lot of respect for Hegseth, when he said he was keeping Brown. Brown, like Milley before him, is a major part of the problem. Shit rolls downhill and Brown set the example that all the other GOs followed.
So far nothing has convinced me otherwise, so I still say every GO and E-9 in the Military should be fired immediately. They either added and abetted DEI and Woke, or they didn’t say a damn thing because their careers were more important than the Security of the United States.
As far as I’ve seen, he hasn’t actually said he was keeping him yet. Yes, he did say he was standing with him at that moment, and that he looked forward to working with him, but he didn’t say for how long. For now, I’ll give SecDef the benefit of the doubt, and a little time to move things forward. If, in the end, he does end up keeping CQ, I’ll share your opinion completely.
The quote was “I’m standing with him right now. I look forward to working with him.”
To say “I am firing him in 10 minutes/days” would be to subject him to public humiliation, and be a grievable action.
The statement is sufficiently vague to avoid that.
I will wait and see.
Current JCSC on list:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/joint-chiefs-chairman-brown-list-121608220.html
“… it is unclear when these employees could begin receiving notice they are being fired.”
Best to prepare now for that pink slip notification.
Save your pennies. Eat at home. Watch TV (vs going out to the movies). Start “networking” (just in case). Update your resume.
How old ARE you? That’s the kind of stuff we used to do back in the 70s!
On the topic of firings…USS Truman skipper, CAPT Dave Snowden, has been canned.
USS Truman Commander Fired After Collision with Merchant Ship near Suez Canal | Military.com
Last night:
It’s easy to say the words, but until living conditions improve for troops most of what’s being done is bullshit photo op crap that does nothing to improve morale….
If my family is living in a mold infested shithole, some general getting his ass canned doesn’t do a goddamn thing to improve my life…also true for any other cuts being made because at the end of the day if my wife and kids are miserable I’m not re-enlisting I’m out and the military can fuck right off.
I hear a lot shit talk about improving the lethality of the mission and creating a military of warriors, but so far the words are just that, words.
Anyone thinking morale isn’t the cornerstone is misguided.
Now if you’re telling me we’re firing these people because they neglected living conditions at a series of bases and replacing them with people who are immediately going to fix those living conditions then I’m happy to come along for the ride…but time will tell if this is real or just more theatrics for the cameras.