Pentagon orders pause across military to address extremism in its ranks

Austin delivered the order at a meeting of the leaders of each military service Wednesday that included the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley, and vice chairman Gen. John Hyten, according to Kirby.

“There wasn’t one being in the room that didn’t agree that there wasn’t a problem,” he said.

The order was designed to allow military leaders to make clear that white supremacy and other extremist ideology had no place in the armed forces and to hear from troops about how they view the problem, Kirby said.