WASHINGTON:
President Donald Trump fired high US army officer Common Charles “CQ” Brown on Friday, a part of a significant shake-up of the armed forces’ management.
Trump provided no rationalization for Brown’s dismissal lower than two years into his four-year time period as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers, which adopted sweeping layoffs of federal staff and strikes to dismantle authorities establishments only a month into the president’s second time period.
Brown had been nominated to the highest army function by Democratic president Joe Biden and have become solely the second Black particular person to carry the place.
Following Trump’s announcement on Brown, Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth stated he was searching for a alternative for Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the primary girl to function the highest US Navy officer.
Trump thanked Brown for “his over 40 years of service to our nation” in a put up on his Fact Social platform, describing him as “a superb gentleman and an impressive chief.”
Brown has commanded a fighter squadron and two fighter wings, in addition to US air forces below the Central Command and Indo-Pacific Command. He had served as Joint Chiefs chairman since October 2023.
Following the 2020 homicide of a Black man, George Floyd, by a white police officer in Minnesota, Brown — an skilled fighter pilot with greater than 3,000 flight hours, 130 of them in fight — recorded an emotional video about his private experiences, together with with discrimination within the US army.
“I am fascinated about my Air Drive profession, the place I used to be typically the one African American in my squadron or as a senior officer, the one African American within the room,” Brown stated.
“I am fascinated about the stress I felt to carry out error-free, particularly for supervisors I understand had anticipated much less from me as an African American.”
Hegseth had advocated for Brown’s firing in a November podcast look, saying any high officers “concerned in any of the DEI (variety, fairness and inclusion) woke shit has acquired to go,” however instructed journalists final month that he was “wanting ahead to working” with the overall.
Trump stated he was nominating Air Drive Lieutenant Common Dan Caine to switch Brown.
He stated Caine — whom he not too long ago described assembly in Iraq throughout his first time period — is “an achieved pilot, nationwide safety knowledgeable, profitable entrepreneur, and a ‘warfighter’ with vital interagency and particular operations expertise.”
Caine served in positions together with affiliate director for army affairs on the CIA, in addition to in numerous operational and employees roles, together with greater than 150 hours in fight as an F-16 pilot, an plane by which he logged greater than 2,800 hours.