Dan Driscoll was on vacation with his family in North Carolina in April when word reached him that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had just fired the Army’s top general without giving any explanation.
Rather than calling a meeting or issuing a statement, Driscoll loaded up his family and drove straight to Gen. Randy George’s front door. “We walked right in, and we all gave him a hug,” Driscoll later told Congress. “There is no person that has more respect for Gen. George and his 42 years of service. He was an amazing, transformational leader.”
Four months after that drive, Driscoll handed in his own resignation. An Army official later told CNN that Driscoll “spoke to the president about the current state of the Army and submitted his resignation.” A separate source told NBC News what was actually behind it, saying Driscoll had “brought up concerns with the administration surrounding Army transformation and readiness and Hegseth’s blocking those efforts specifically by firing the generals who were responsible.”
Five fewer four-star generals now serve on active duty than did before Hegseth arrived at the Pentagon, a decline of half in about eighteen months, and George’s firing was just one entry on that list.
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Hegseth also removed Navy Secretary John Phelan during that same stretch, and forced out Driscoll’s own public affairs chief, Col. Dave Butler, who had traveled with Driscoll to Ukraine to help restart peace talks the year before. According to the New York Times, he went further still, blocking promotions for several senior officers, including two Black men and two women, after Driscoll refused to strike their names from the list himself.
None of this fits the profile of a typical political appointee walking away quietly.
Driscoll became the youngest Army secretary in the country’s history at 38, an Iraq War veteran nicknamed “drone guy” for pushing the Army toward modernized technology, and a Yale Law classmate of Vice President JD Vance. A source close to the administration told the New York Post back in April that the friendship had a specific effect inside the Pentagon: “He is very concerned about being fired and he knows that Driscoll is one of the top contenders, or a natural contender, to succeed him,” referring to Hegseth’s own anxiety about Driscoll’s standing.
Even that protection eventually ran out.
Gen. Christopher LaNeve, installed by Hegseth as George’s replacement, moved in August to dismantle a specialized drone unit Driscoll had spent months personally building, folding it back into a standard infantry battalion instead.
Driscoll’s exit lands roughly six months into a war with Iran that shows no sign of ending, one that the Washington Post has reported several top generals have privately cautioned may not be sustainable, with some issuing formal objections known as “non-concurs” to Hegseth’s orders.
Featured image via X screengrab
