On August 30, 2021, a photograph taken through night vision goggles captured the last American soldier boarding the final C-17 cargo plane out of Kabul. That soldier was General Chris Donahue. Recently, after clashing with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Donahue filed his retirement papers and will leave his post on July 2, eighteen months into what is normally a three-year assignment.
Donahue had earned the ire of Hegseth, multiple sources told CBS News, and two US officials confirmed that the pair had only met once in person, in February 2025, which is a remarkable fact given the scope of the command involved.
Donahue oversaw Army operations across Europe and Africa and served simultaneously as commander of NATO’s Allied Land Command, and was widely considered the next chief of staff of the Army before this week. The Army’s statement on his departure was brief: “The Army thanks Gen. Donahue for his leadership of U.S. Army Europe and Africa.” The Pentagon deferred questions to the Army.
The tributes from his peers were considerably less brief.
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Brett McGurk, who served as special presidential envoy for the counter-ISIS coalition under Obama and during Trump’s first term, told CBS: “There are few people more responsible for the defeat of ISIS than Chris Donahue. He is among the most consequential commanders of his generation.”
Retired Army General Tony Thomas, former commander of US Special Operations Command, described Donahue as a “generational leader.” Senator Thom Tillis went further, saying Hegseth “would do well to surround himself with more patriots like General Donahue and to get his henchmen, who are not qualified to carry Donahue’s bag, out of the Pentagon.”
Donahue is the latest in a line of nearly two dozen senior military leaders to depart early under Hegseth’s tenure, a list that includes the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the chief of naval operations, the Air Force vice chief of staff, the Army chief of staff, the Coast Guard commandant and the Navy secretary.
One retired service member captured the contradiction in a comment to The Atlantic: “It’s interesting that the guy who says he wants to bring back the warrior culture is expunging the biggest warriors in the Army ranks. This is not a war on woke. This is a war on warriors.”
There is one detail worth sitting with. Hegseth has spent years publicly condemning the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal and ordered a fresh Pentagon review of it last May, despite the operation having already been examined by multiple prior investigations. The general he just forced out is the man who led that withdrawal.
Featured image via X screengrab
