Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asked the Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, to step down from the post and retire immediately, a Pentagon official told The Hill on Thursday.
The Army did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment.
The Pentagon confirmed George’s retirement, who served as the Army’s 41st chief of staff.
“The Department of War is grateful for General George’s decades of service to our nation. We wish him well in his retirement,” Pentagon chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell, said in a statement.
The Army’s current vice chief of staff is Gen. Christopher LaNeve, who was previously Hegseth’s military aide, will serve as the acting chief of staff, a Pentagon official told The Hill.
“General LaNeve — a generational leader — will help ensure the Army revives the warrior ethos, rebuilds for the modern battlefield and deters our enemies around the world,” Hegseth said of LaNeve in January.
George assumed the role, which is typically a four-year post, in September 2023 after being confirmed by the Senate; he had been serving as the Army’s vice chief of staff. George, a career infantry officer who graduated from West Point, was nominated by former President Biden.
Since taking the helm at the Pentagon, Hegseth has fired more than a dozen senior military officers, including the Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Slife, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse and Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Lisa Franchetti.
The ouster of George marks another example of tension between the Pentagon head and the Army’s leadership. Hegseth ordered Army Secretary Dan Driscoll to remove one of his top advisers, Col. David Butler, who was Gen. Mark Milley’s spokesperson when he was chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in February.
On Tuesday, Hegseth said the Army crew that flew two AH‑64 Apache helicopters near Kid Rock’s Nashville home will not face suspension and ended the investigation into the service members. Earlier that day, the crew members were suspended by the Army and the service opened an investigation into the incident.
George’s ouster was reported earlier by CBS News.
George was commissioned from the U.S. Military Academy as an infantry officer in 1988 and deployed in support of Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
George was the Army’s chief of staff from 2022 to 2023.
Updated at 6:05 p.m. EDT
