As of Aug. 25, 2026, the U.S. Army has gone four months without a confirmed chief of staff — the service’s top uniformed post. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth removed Gen. Randy George from the job on April 2, 2026, without a public explanation. The latest concrete removal identified in the available reporting was Lt. Gen. Charles Costanza, who was relieved in early August 2026. Since then, Lt. Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the Army’s vice chief of staff, has been acting in the role, but Hegseth has not formally nominated him for the permanent post.
George’s removal was not an isolated move. In the same week, Hegseth also fired Maj. Gen. William Green Jr., the Army’s chief of chaplains, and Gen. David Hodne, commander of Army Transformation and Training Command — neither dismissal was publicly explained either.
Key facts
- Vacancy: The Army has had no confirmed chief of staff for four months, as of Aug. 25, 2026.
- Removed: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth removed Gen. Randy George on April 2, 2026, without a public explanation.
- Acting chief: Lt. Gen. Christopher LaNeve has been running the Army in an acting capacity; Hegseth has not formally nominated him for the permanent post.
- Why the holdup: According to an August 2026 report, Senate Armed Services Committee Republicans — including Chairman Roger Wicker and Sen. Joni Ernst — are withholding support because LaNeve has served only about six months as a four-star general, short of the roughly 18-month track record the committee typically expects before someone becomes chief of staff.
- Same week: Hegseth also fired Maj. Gen. William Green Jr., the Army’s chief of chaplains, and Gen. David Hodne, commander of Army Transformation and Training Command.
- Running tally: A Newsweek count in June 2026 put the number of generals and admirals fired, sidelined or pushed into early retirement since January 2025 at roughly 20 — described as approximate and likely to keep changing.
A pattern stretching back to early 2025
George’s ouster did not happen in isolation. It is the most recent entry in a much longer run of senior military departures under Hegseth, one that began in January 2025, soon after he took office as defense secretary, and has continued in roughly every season since:
- February 2025. President Trump fired Gen. C.Q. Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That same month, Hegseth removed Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to serve as chief of naval operations, and Gen. Jim Slife, the Air Force’s vice chief of staff. He also fired the Army’s and Air Force’s top uniformed lawyers — Lt. Gen. Joseph Berger and Lt. Gen. Charles Plummer — saying at the time that he wanted military lawyers who would not be “roadblocks” to orders.
- August 2025. Hegseth fired Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. The dismissal came on Aug. 22, 2025, days after a leaked DIA assessment concluded that U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites that June had a more limited effect than President Trump’s public claim that the sites were “obliterated.” Congressional officials were told the firing reflected a “lack of confidence.” That same day, the Pentagon also removed Rear Adm. Milton “Jamie” Sands III, commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, and Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, chief of the Navy Reserve; Navy officials gave no public reason for either move. Lacore later said publicly that she had been removed “without cause … Along with dozens of other military leaders,” and went on to run for Congress in South Carolina. Days earlier, in mid-August 2025, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin had announced he would retire early, about two years into a four-year term, under what a Washington Post source described as pressure from Hegseth to take the Pentagon “in a different direction.”
- October 2025. Gen. James Mingus, the Army’s vice chief of staff, was forced out, about a year ahead of his scheduled departure, again with no public explanation.
- April 2026. Hegseth removed Gen. Randy George as Army chief of staff, the firing described at the top of this article.
- July 2026. Gen. Christopher T. Donahue — commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa and previously known as the last American soldier to leave Kabul during the 2021 withdrawal — stepped down after his command was downgraded from a four-star to a three-star headquarters, ending an assignment after about 18 months instead of the usual three years.
- August 2026. Lt. Gen. Charles Costanza was relieved as commander of the U.S. 5th Army Corps, the unit that coordinates American military support to Ukraine, about two months ahead of his scheduled departure.
No single official tally of how many generals and admirals have been fired, sidelined or pushed into early retirement exists — the Pentagon has not published one. One count, by Newsweek in June 2026, put the figure at roughly 20 since Hegseth took office in January 2025, though that number was already described as approximate and likely to keep changing.
Congress has pushed back — from both parties
The pace and opacity of the removals has drawn bipartisan criticism. Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, called the April 2026 firings “baseless,” saying “purging military leadership as our country faces grave challenges and threats from around the world is cause for serious alarm.” Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she found the pattern of removals “deeply troubling.” Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican and retired Air Force brigadier general, has said the firings have “caused damage to the Pentagon,” and Sen. Tim Kaine and Sen. Thom Tillis have also voiced concern.
In response, the House has advanced a proposal that would require the Pentagon to notify Congress within five days whenever a senior military official is removed. That proposal followed an earlier round of pushback: in February and March of 2025, shortly after the first wave of firings, five former defense secretaries — William Perry, Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel, Jim Mattis and Lloyd Austin — wrote a joint letter calling the initial round of firings “reckless” and asked Congress to hold hearings; the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee at the time said he was not interested in doing so.
What’s not true: no mass resignation took place
A separate claim spread online in August 2026 that 300 Defense Department generals and officers had resigned all at once, in what was described as the largest resignation wave in U.S. history. That claim is false. Snopes rated it false, and a Defense Department spokesperson denied that any mass resignation occurred; no credible news outlet reported it. The rumor may have grown out of an unrelated matter — roughly 300 Defense Department employees whom Hegseth reportedly had investigated over alleged online criticism of Charlie Kirk. That investigation has nothing to do with the string of general and admiral firings described above; the two stories share only the number 300 and the Pentagon as a common thread.
Where things stand
The Army’s top job remains open, with LaNeve running the service in an acting capacity and no nomination for the permanent post in front of the Senate. Hegseth’s office has not laid out a single, consistent public rationale for the broader run of departures — different removals have been attributed to different circumstances, from the Kruse case’s tie to the Iran intelligence dispute to Donahue’s downgraded command, while others, including George’s, have come with no stated reason at all.
One concrete marker to watch: LaNeve’s own service clock. At his current pace, he would not reach the roughly 18-month mark as a four-star general — the informal bar the Senate Armed Services Committee has cited — until sometime in 2027, and nothing in the record confirms whether a nomination would follow even then.
The disruption is not confined to the chief of staff’s chair. GV Wire reported in August 2026 that, beyond the firings and forced departures described above, Hegseth’s Pentagon has also blocked the promotion of roughly 40 senior colonels and Navy captains who had already been selected to become one-star generals or admirals. Whether the vacancy itself is slowing the Army’s broader day-to-day operations — readiness, deployments or other major decisions — is not something the available reporting addresses one way or the other.
Separately, the House’s proposed five-day notification requirement, if it becomes law, would not fill the vacancy, but it would require the Pentagon to notify Congress within five days the next time it removes a senior officer.