There was a story The Atlantic published yesterday, which was surely meant to feed the flames of the 'Hegseth doesn't have the first clue what he's doing' crowd's thirst for blood.
Another senior staff officer, this time a well-regarded Army three-star, had been summarily dismissed.
Exclusive: Pete Hegseth has fired another top general in the military—presaging more upheaval in the Pentagon’s upper echelons as Trump looks to break the stalemate of the war with Iran, @nancyayoussef reports: https://t.co/sjZphmZWlu https://t.co/DfxiRmpGyw
— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) October 29, 2026
I don't have a subscription to this particular rag, but you can get the gist from the first paragraphs.
Earlier this week, the Pentagon’s chief planner, Army Lieutenant General Brett Sylvia, was ousted from the Joint Staff. No explanation was given. This comes at an inopportune moment, given that President Trump may be planning to relaunch the war on Iran. Sylvia, the former commander of the 101st Airborne Division, becomes the latest in a long line of senior officers who have been shown the door since Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrived at the Pentagon almost two years ago.
No replacement for Sylvia was named, and it is unclear who will take over his responsibilities. In the past, the deputy or vice director of the relevant directorate of the Joint Staff would fill the role on a temporary basis until the president nominated a candidate for Senate confirmation. Sylvia is the second person to be pushed out of the job of director of the Directorate for Strategy, Plans, and Policy at the Joint Staff, known inside the military as the J5, in the past year. His predecessor, Army Lieutenant General Joseph McGee, was forced to retire. “Now is not the time when you’d want to lose the J5,” a former Joint Chiefs of Staff official said. “This person would serve as a critical link between the operational force, the department policy, and the White House.”
It is clearly meant to confirm the narrative that Hegseth is a touchy, weekend warrior, company-class ideologue who has been swinging an indiscriminate hatchet at the senior officers his sort of knuckle-dragging Neanderthal has always despised.
The yahoo now Secretary of War (which they also find incredibly offensive) has made no bones about what his goals and expectations are for those higher-ranking, extraordinarily privileged, and extremely comfortable in their castles flag officers.
'Clowns out, cowboys in,' says Hegseth as a fifth of generals and admirals are fired
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has confirmed the firing of 20% of top military leadership, while stressing a "warrior ethos", and plans for a new base and autonomous warfare command.
In a fiery speech to top brass at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, he shared a variety of new initiatives, as well as adding to a round of personnel cuts in 2025.
And I'm sorry, not sorry, if it offends them, but in general (heh) there are simply too many of them to begin with, much like the proliferation of administrative staff has choked the life out of university payrolls.
...There are over 800 active-duty generals and admirals across the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Space Force, according to the latest department tally.
So far, between the obvious poor performers, hard-core wokesters, and the planned cuts, Hegseth has managed to separate somewhere around 25 senior military officers, or about 10 percent of the active admirals and generals.
Put like that, against over 800, it doesn't sound so awful, does it?
The press, many in the modern military who don't know any different because they have only ever experienced the Obama years forward, and an openly hostile Democrat Party with its radical progressive elements have all been gunning for Hegseth's head on a platter even before he took over. Look at what a revolting circus his confirmation hearings were.
And they are all in a hair-on-fire tizzy about the nerve of this wet-behind-the-ears TV show host firing these august and revered officers and, worse, doing it in the middle of a war his boss started.
OMG - who will hold Party Pete's hand if, say, Gen. Sylvia isn't there to do it?!?!
ELEVENTY!!!
NO DEFENSE SECRETARY HAS EVER DONE THIS BEFORE, ELEVENTY!!!!
Hegseth is Removing Military's Senior Leaders Faster Than Any Defense Secretary in Recent History
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has either fired myriad senior officers, or blocked the promotions of more than 80 generals and admirals during his tenure, reimagining the Pentagon at a rapid pace.
This turnover is not a single event but three overlapping ones. Hegseth is cutting the number of senior positions by policy, removing sitting commanders, and personally intervening in the promotion lists that determine who will lead the military years from now.
This week, after Army Secretary Dan Driscoll's resignation, criticism began coming from within his own party.
Measured against the first 19 months of the Biden administration and of President Donald Trump's first term, no recent defense secretary has reshaped the top ranks at this pace.
Get that? 'No recent.' Think that might be part of the issue?
Maybe they should have. This has been long overdue, with everyone too cushy and comfortable in their tenured positions, again like a professor immune to consequences from either outside forces or the degradation of his own work ethic.
The other part of this problem is looking at it through a defense secretary lens. It should have been the services policing themselves.
The greatest purge in US military history wasn't because a defense secretary got a broom out. It happened because the defense secretary let his Army Chief of Staff do what he felt he had to do.
Hegseth turned twenty-five flag officers out to pasture?
Gen. George Marshall cashiered over 600 officers in his quest to whip the Army into shape in the few years right before WWII. The criticisms of Marshall are nearly identical to what Hegseth is hearing, and Marshall's pithy rejoinders would fit into any Hegseth speech.
...MARSHALL RETURNED to Washington with a battle plan. “The present general officers of the line are for the most part too old to command troops in battle under the terrific pressure of modern war,” Marshall said in October 1939, a month after being sworn in as chief. “Most of them have their minds set in outmoded patterns, and can’t change to meet the new conditions they may face if we become involved in the war that’s started in Europe.”
At Marshall’s behest, 31 colonels, 117 lieutenant colonels, 31 majors, and 16 captains were forced into retirement or discharged from the active-duty force in the summer and fall of 1941. In addition, some 269 National Guard and Army Reserve officers were let go. All told, Marshall estimated that, as chief of staff, he forced out at least 600 officers before the United States entered World War II.
“I was accused right away by the service papers of getting rid of all the brains of the army,” he said. “I couldn’t reply that I was eliminating considerable arteriosclerosis.”
Marshall removed officers in part to convey a sense of urgency. When the commandant at Leavenworth, Brigadier General Charles Bundel, told him that updating army training manuals would take 18 months, Marshall offered him three months. No, it can’t be done, Bundel responded. Marshall then offered four months. Bundel again said it was impossible. Marshall asked him to reconsider. “You be very careful about that,” Marshall warned.
“No, it can’t be done,” Bundel insisted.
“I’m sorry, then you are relieved,” Marshall said.
When politicians questioned his efforts to put new men into the leadership of National Guard divisions, he let slip his fierce temper, a rarity. At one meeting with members of Congress protesting the relief of a general, he declared, “I am not going to leave him in command of that division. So I will put it to you this way: If he stays, I go, and if I stay, he goes.” When Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter passed along criticism from a friend in the Army Reserve, Marshall tartly replied,
“Most of our senior officers on such duty are deadwood and should be eliminated from the service as rapidly as possible.”
Hegseth has Dan Caine and is assembling a cadre of able, trusted, many battle-tested senior advisors he can lean on.
Speaking of 'trusted,' about Gen. Sylvia's being forced out with 'no explanation '?
Oh. Turns out there was one. You kind of had to figure there was.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired the Pentagon's top military planner, several sources confirmed to CBS News late Wednesday.
A Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters, said Army Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia was accused of misconduct for allegedly leaking classified information related to the Iran war and the Russia-Ukraine war.
Sylvia failed three polygraph tests about sharing classified information with the press, the official said, adding that the case has been referred to the Department of Justice.
Two other Pentagon sources confirmed to CBS News that the firing was related to the polygraph tests, but said those accusations are not true.
Hegseth has made rooting out leakers at the Pentagon a priority, with sources telling CBS News last month that high-ranking military officials were subject to polygraph tests. Three staffers from his office were escorted out last year amid a leak investigation, but the Pentagon never released the results of any investigation.
Had to be bad to walk back the standard boilerplate 'we thank the general' adieu statement.
...After initially issuing a statement extending "the deepest gratitude" for Slyvia's 32 years of service, a spokesperson for the Joint Staff retracted the statement and issued a new one.
"Upon further review, we determined that the statement did not appropriately reflect the full circumstances," the spokesperson said. "Out of respect for the servicemember and the ongoing personnel process we will not comment further."
Sylvia is a former commander of the 101st Airborne Division with multiple deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, earned a Bronze Star for Valor. He was a Purple Heart recipient after being wounded in battle in that gunfight with the Taliban, and he had a storied combat career that spanned 32 years.
According to the Daily Caller, it was worse than bad.
I mean, DAY-YUM.
...“Due to the Pentagon’s media policy requiring journalists to have escorts in the building, Sylvia began meeting with journalists outside of the Pentagon to leak classified information,” the official told the Caller.
Sean Parnell laid it out in the official DOW statement, and the DC's Rebeka Zeljko got a terse statement from a DOW official, as well.
“Army Lieutenant General Brett Sylvia, who was part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was fired by Secretary Hegseth for severe misconduct. Although Sylvia’s title was director of the Directorate for Strategy, Plans, and Policy at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, known inside the military as the J5, he was NOT a central planner for the Iran War. That is the responsibility of CENTCOM and its commander Admiral Cooper.
Sylvia is the subject of an investigation for leaking classified information about the Iran War, the war between Russia and Ukraine, and more. Due to the Pentagon’s media policy requiring journalists to have escorts in the building, Sylvia began meeting with journalists outside of the Pentagon in order to leak classified information.
Sylvia failed three polygraphs which questioned him about leaking classified information. The investigation into him remains ongoing and has been referred to the Department of Justice for further action. The extent of his leaking became so critical that Secretary Hegseth took immediate action and fired Sylvia in order to protect national security. Urgent action was needed and could not wait another second.”
FIRED FOR SEVERE MISCONDUCT
What an utter disgrace to his uniform if any of it proves to be true. The DOW's tight lips are because there are most assuredly legal ramifications, and the Pentagon isn't going to compromise any case that might be brought against the accused general officer.
But as The Atlantic got the sob story out first, it'll be grist for the anti-Hegseth, anti-Trump mill, especially as Democrats are feeling a little desperate right now.
The last thing Democrats and the media want is to have the leaks turned off, particularly if they were really good ones.
They might be running low on people who hate Hegseth enough to compromise the mission, and then where would they be?