Hegseth blocks promotion of four Army officers to general rank

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has blocked the promotion of four Army officers to one-star general rank, a move that has prompted questions from senior military officials about whether the officers are being singled out because of their race or gender.

Two of the four officers targeted by Hegseth are Black men and two are women, according to military officials. The officers were on a promotion list of approximately three dozen colonels, most of whom are white men.

Hegseth had pressed senior Army leaders, including Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll, for months to remove the officers' names from the list. Driscoll repeatedly refused, citing the officers' decades-long records of exemplary service. Earlier this month, Hegseth unilaterally struck the officers' names from the promotion list.

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, sharply criticized Hegseth on Friday for the action. Reed said the intervention violated military rules that promotions should be based on "individual merit and demonstrated performance." Military officials said that after a service board approves a list of colonels for promotion to general, the defense secretary is not supposed to intervene in the process.

According to U.S. officials not authorized to speak publicly, Hegseth has been removing senior officers deemed ideologically incompatible from consideration. NPR confirmed that Hegseth made the highly unusual move of interfering in the regular promotion process, as first reported by the New York Times.

One of the four officers was removed after writing a paper years ago explaining why African American soldiers tended to opt for support jobs instead of frontline combat positions. Another officer served during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, though current and former military officials said she performed her job well despite the difficulties.

NPR also learned that a Black colonel and a female colonel from another branch of the military were taken off the promotion list, which would bring the total number of officers removed to at least six.