AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The news that Army Secretary Dan Driscoll has turned in his resignation continues to send shockwaves throughout the U.S. military. The Department of Defense, under Pete Hegseth, has seen an exodus of experienced military leadership. These are people who are either fired by Hegseth or who choose to leave. For more, we're joined now by NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman. Hi, Tom.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.
CHANG: OK. So Secretary Driscoll went to the White House, turned in his resignation to President Trump. What do we know about what Driscoll said to him?
BOWMAN: Well, he told the president a number of things, Ailsa, according to a person close to him. He said the U.S. is losing the Iran war. He talked about how the war has drastically reduced the stockpile of missiles, talked about the difficulty in getting the Pentagon budget through under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Then he said, modernizing the military, a key focus of Driscoll, was not going forward because Hegseth is firing people who know what they're doing. This person said Driscoll basically laid it down. I think there was a hope Driscoll would stay through the midterms, but I'm told he'll leave this week.
CHANG: Yeah. Well, of course, it's no secret that Hegseth and Driscoll did not get along, right?
BOWMAN: Right. I think right from the start, and part of it, I think, is Driscoll's close ties to the White House, his old Yale law school roommate, Vice President JD Vance, and he would often go there to talk with him. And Driscoll was sent on a mission - remember - to talk with Russian and Ukrainian generals about a possible peace deal in Ukraine. The sense I get is Hegseth maybe heard footsteps because there's long been a sense Driscoll would replace him.
But the big problem between the two centered on the firings. Hegseth sacked more than 10 generals, reached down into the promotion list to pull off the names of people who had been carefully vetted, many of them Black and female officers, and there were never really any reasons given for these firings.
CHANG: Right.
BOWMAN: Driscoll was successful on rare occasions to save some jobs, including a Black female, Maj. Gen. Antoinette Grant (ph), who leads a military district of Washington. But he was not able to save Army chief of staff Gen. Randy George, who was fired by Hegseth. I think, Ailsa, that was a last straw, not only for Driscoll but even some Republicans on Capitol Hill. George was key in modernizing the Army, focusing on drone warfare, and worked well with Driscoll, who Trump called the drone guy.
And there seems to have been little communication between Hegseth and Driscoll on other issues. I'm told Driscoll was in Germany when he learned the Pentagon would reduce U.S. troops there. He never got a heads up.
CHANG: Wow. Well, Tom, has there ever been any precedent for firings like those?
BOWMAN: You know, not on this scale. You had Defense Secretary Robert Gates fire the Air Force secretary and the top Air Force general because of safety concerns. Among them, a B-52 mistakenly was carrying a nuclear missile on a cross-country flight in 2008, but he publicly explained his reasoning. Gates and other secretaries fired a general here or there, but always for cause, always explained. Again, we don't see that with Hegseth, although sources say some of those firings were because they were too close to former joint chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, who Trump can't stand, or a belief by Hegseth that race or gender led to the promotion, or differences in policy, such as deploying U.S. troops on American streets. I know one general said, not a good idea, and Hegseth didn't like that.
CHANG: Well, do you have a sense of what kind of effect all of that has been having on the military since?
BOWMAN: Yeah. I'm hearing that many officers are keeping their heads down, somewhat confused about what's going on. One Hill staffer and other sources say there appears to be an exodus or a possible exodus of mid-level officers who are troubled by the firings in their leaders and wondering if they should just go now. Still, a former senior Army official told me there are still some very good senior generals but he added, the bench is getting thin.
CHANG: That is NPR's Tom Bowman. Thank you, Tom.
BOWMAN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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