In a blitz from his early days, President Trump fired the first woman to lead a military service branch, signed an order sending active-duty U.S. troops to the border and said they were reinstating, with pay, former Service members who refused. Taking the covid vaccine is a violation of military health regulations.
And a photo of his former senior military adviser, whom Mr Trump has accused of disloyalty, was quickly taken down at the Pentagon.
Mr Trump’s defense secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth, said at his confirmation hearing last week that the president wanted a military that was “focused on lethality, meritocracy, truce, accountability and readiness”.
It’s not starting that way.
Instead, the military is back where it historically didn’t want to be: in the middle of political and culture wars that could erode bipartisan support and, ultimately, public support for a military perceived as apolitical. goes
The removal of former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley from a hallway may be the least significant and symbolically most important of portraits of those who held the job. Decisions of the House.
Mr. Trump appointed General Milley during his first term. But the general angered them in 2020 by arguing against deploying active-duty troops to crack down on protesters. He also drew the president’s ire when he excused himself from walking publicly with Mr Trump in a park near the White House, in his military fatigues. Authorities used tear gas and rubber bullets to break up the peaceful demonstration.
“There will be soldiers who believe that Millie represented a flashpoint between legitimate and illegitimate orders,” said Douglas E. Levitt, a retired three-star Army general who served on the National Security Council for President George W. Bush in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Coordinated operations in other countries. Bush and Barack Obama.
“It is like flying the flag at half-mast,” said General Lieut. “Not because everybody loves Mark Milley, far from it, but the fact is that as chairman, he believed in doing the right thing, and history has shown that he was on the right side of decision-making. “
Also released was Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Linda L. Fagan, the first female uniformed leader of a branch of the armed forces. Among the reasons he was fired was an “excessive focus on diversity, equity and inclusion,” according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security.
Admiral Fagan, formerly the service’s second-in-command, graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in 1985 as part of only the sixth class that included women. She rose through the ranks serving at sea on icebreakers and ashore as a maritime security officer.
On the evening of Inauguration Day, the admiral was told she had been fired as she waited to take a photo with Mr. Trump at the Commander-in-Chief Ball, a military official said. Efforts to reach Admiral Fagan for comment were unsuccessful.
As Trump’s new team moves into the Pentagon, other top military officials are trying to see if they will suffer a similar fate.
Mr. Hegseth, a Fox News host and veteran, has criticized Pentagon leadership for its inclusivity efforts, saying women should not serve in combat roles. Of the nation’s 1.3 million active-duty soldiers, 230,000 are women, and more than 350,000 are black.
In his book “The War on Warriors,” Mr. Hegseth refers to Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the chief of naval operations and the first woman to serve on the Joint Chiefs, as “another inexperienced first.”
Admiral Franchetti served in the Navy for 40 years and commanded aircraft carrier strike groups.
Mr Hegseth has also called for the sacking of General Milley’s successor, General Charles Q Brown Jr. General Brown is a four-star fighter pilot with 130 combat flight hours, and has served multiple command tours in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East during his four decades of service.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs under President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama, said in an interview, “If you want to find a way to dismantle the military, start by dismantling its leadership. Do it.”
On Wednesday, the Defense Department’s new team held its first news conference to announce it is sending 1,500 active-duty troops to the border to help prevent immigrants from entering the United States. They will join about 2,500 soldiers already there doing logistical and bureaucratic tasks such as vehicle maintenance and data entry.
During his first term, Mr. Trump declared a national security emergency on the southern border and ordered the deployment of thousands of active-duty U.S. troops there.
Pentagon officials say Mr. Trump’s order is a misuse of a military that is supposed to be training to fight a war. The Posse Comitatus Act, a 146-year-old law, prohibits the use of armed forces for law enforcement purposes on US soil unless expressly authorized by Congress or the Constitution.
This is the same logic that General Milley and other top national security officials used during Trump’s first term when they urged the president to use the Sedition Act to deploy active-duty U.S. troops to crush Black Lives Matter protesters. Advised not to.
On Tuesday, each of the armed services was ordered to comply with various directives from Mr. Trump. For example, the army received about two dozen orders. In each case, Army officials were directed to freeze funding, form a review panel and report back within 30 days on how the Army intended to deal with the directive.
The orders target diversity offices and initiatives, transgender issues, climate change and funding for service members to travel to states for abortions or other reproductive health services if they are stationed in those states. They are stationed at places where abortion is prohibited.
At the Pentagon, a military official noted on Wednesday that the new administration’s actions against the military have a recurring pattern, including sending troops back to the border and favoring white men over women and members of minority groups. is included.
The soldier said that there is also an example of taking down the picture of General Milli. Back in 2019, the Trump White House asked the Navy to hide a destroyer named after Senator John McCain so the ship wouldn’t appear in photos taken during Mr. Trump’s visit to Japan. (Mr. Trump did not like the Arizona senator.)
As of late Wednesday, another portrait of General Milley still hung in the Pentagon, several hallways and a floor away from the now empty space where his other portrait once stood.
That was the general when he was Army chief of staff, a post he left in August 2019, when Mr. Trump promoted him to the position of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. At the Pentagon, there was some talk about when Trump’s new team would take notice.
Eric Schmidt And John Ismay Cooperation reporting.
