Hegseth Fires Service JAGs
The top uniformed lawyers for the Army, Navy, and Air Force have been relieved.
While it will likely be buried in the news of the firing of three members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the nomination of a retired 3-star as Chairman, it’s noteworthy that Secretary Hegseth also fired the top uniformed lawyers for the three service departments:
We are also requesting nominations for the Judge Advocates General for the Army, Navy and Air Force.
The JAGs for the Navy and Air Force serve the Marine Corps and Space Force, respectively, as well.*
There was no explanation given for why these 3-star officers—the top uniformed lawyers in their services and thus not only the head of their respective Judge Advocate corps but the principal legal advisor to their service chiefs—were let go. I could speculate but will not do so here.
It is noteworthy, though, that Hegseth has long had an animus for military lawyers. It was a bone of contention during his confirmation hearings.
NYT, “Hegseth Spars with Senator Over What He Meant by Slang Term,” January 14, 2025
One of the stranger moments in a confirmation hearing on Tuesday for Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, was when a senator asked the former Fox News host to define the word “jagoff.”
The question from Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was prompted by a comment that Mr. Hegseth made to his military platoon, as he wrote in his 2024 book, “The War on Warriors.” He made the comment during his Iraq deployment in 2005 after hearing a presentation by a JAG officer, or a member of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, who defend Army soldiers in legal matters.
After he and his team were briefed by the JAG officer on the proper protocols for firing on an enemy with a rocket-propelled grenade, Mr. Hegseth disparaged one of the rules of engagement, saying it was “going to get people killed,” he recalled in his book.
During the hearing on Tuesday, Mr. Hegseth, at first, declined to define the slang term with a slight smile. “I don’t need to, sir,” he said. “The men and women watching understand.”
When pressed, Mr. Hegseth ultimately said “it would be a JAG officer who puts his or her own priorities in front of the war fighters, their promotions, their medals, in front of having the backs of those making the tough calls on the front lines.”
Mr. Reed implied that Mr. Hegseth was being disrespectful when calling JAG officers the slang term. “How will you be able to effectively lead a military in which one of the principal elements is discipline, respect for lawful authority?” Mr. Reed asked.
The word “jagoff” — rooted in an unmistakably sexual definition, a blurring of a more lurid term — has expanded to become a catch-all insult for someone who is annoying or otherwise unfavorable. But the meaning has regional contexts, too. In western Pennsylvania, it can be used to dismiss someone for their irritating behavior — or to embrace them with a sarcastic but affectionate compliment.
More broadly, Hegseth has repeatedly noted his frustrations about the laws of armed conflict and rules of engagement which put soldiers in a more precarious position.
NYT, “The Metamorphosis of Pete Hegseth: From Critic of War Crimes to Defender of the Accused,” November 21, 2024
When Pete Hegseth was an earnest, young Army lieutenant in Iraq in 2005, he was cleareyed on how he viewed crimes committed by soldiers in war.
Soldiers in his own infantry company in Iraq in 2006 had shot civilians, executed prisoners and tried to cover up the crimes.
“Those are a no-brainer,” he told an audience at the University of Virginia after his deployment. He called the acts of those soldiers, who served in a sister platoon in his company, “atrocities” and added: “Of course that’s wrong. No one is here to defend that.”
By the end of his Army career, though, he was repeatedly doing exactly that.
As a presenter on Fox News, he portrayed other troops charged with war crimes as “heroes.” The military prosecuting them was, he said, “throwing warriors under the bus.” The once circumspect officer glossed over crucial details, told his TV audience that troops were just “doing the job they were hired to do” and pushed relentlessly for President Donald J. Trump to intervene.
It was a stark shift for the man President-elect Trump picked this month to lead the Defense Department. Soldiers who served with Mr. Hegseth say the change was driven in part by a string of military deployments — once to Guantánamo Bay, once to Iraq and once to Afghanistan — that each taught him a new lesson in military dysfunction.
The experience transformed him from a neoconservative believer in U.S. military might into an outsider so distrustful of the national security establishment that he repeatedly sided with convicted murderers over Pentagon leadership.
[…]
Mr. Hegseth’s views reflect a disillusionment among a segment of post-9/11 service members, and a slice of the broader public, about how the military is used. Mr. Trump tapped into that anger, promising a more inward-looking foreign policy and a hands-off approach to prosecuting soldiers.
That is why several veterans who served with Mr. Hegseth said they were thrilled with his nomination. Most of those interviewed said they hoped the fact that he did not follow a traditional path to the office, through the upper ranks of the Pentagon and jobs in the defense industry, could help him understand the burdens placed on rank-and-file troops and redirect the military’s priorities.
Others see it differently. They say battlefield rules prevent missions from spiraling into chaos and protect troops from some of the moral pitfalls inherent in combat.
The number of troops charged with illegal killings in Iraq or Afghanistan is minuscule, and military leaders vehemently dispute the notion that such prosecutions were unfair or capricious. They fear having someone at the very top of the chain who does not understand that failing to hold people accountable for the few incidents of war crimes virtually guarantees more of them.
lt’s not obvious, however, what firing these three particular leaders will do to change things. Those next in line will likely have been trained in the same traditions.
*The Marine Corps has a two-star Staff Judge Advocate to the Commandant; thus far, he has been spared. Space Force, as a new service mostly created out of the Air Force and which reports to the Secretary of the Air Force, has no judge advocate corps of its own.
Let me speculate: Hegseth believes the Nuremberg Trials were a travesty.
@Scott: Let me speculate: the traditional concerns and mission of our military is going to get a radical realignment to serve one man and his power base, not the “many.”
After installing loyalists in leadership positions, Trump and Hegseth now want legal backing for any illegal orders the new leadership may give.
This isn’t hard to figure out.
I’m not understanding how mass layoffs across govt will reduce inflation and crime.
It’s unnerving that so many conservatives and right-wingers disdain the ideas of nation-building and intervention, as if they’re against war, while at the same time are completely obsessed with the special-ops masculinity being a solution to problems. The idea that organizations can’t do anything with their rules but supermen like the guys in Sicario can is pretty fascist, if you ask me. But it’s a fascism skewed through the post 9/11 media environment of endless Bourne/Jack Bauer types who can take out rooms in five seconds for an audience of sedentary office-workers who are terrified of everything.
@Modulo Myself: Pop culture has definitely acted as a long term catalyst on what we are witnessing.
Good lord, how did we ever get saddled with such an immature, shallow brat as SecDef. (Wait, I know, he was appointed by an even more immature and idiotic brat!)
Complaining about the rules of engagement? He’s a god damned coward. The whole point of being a soldier is to put yourself in harms way for the sake of your society and the constitution. If you don’t like it, resign.
Blaming lawyers for this is completely idiotic too. They are the messengers. The message is that we are a lawful and discerning society. Not a bunch of video-game players or as we like to call them in tabletop roleplaying, murder hobos. Act like a grownup, Pete, not an adolescent!
Lol. Lindsey Graham was a JAG. It will be fun to see Sen. Bootlicker squirm.
@Argon: He was in the JAG Corps as a Reserve colonel. These are the three-star heads of the JAG Corps of their services.
I was a Reservist JAG Officer Trial Defense Service (TDS) called to AD twice during the Operation Iraq Freedom. I defended Soldiers charged with violations of the UCMJ, GO regulations (e.g. drinking/sex in Theatre), and violations of the law of warfare, ROE, and/or incorporated provisions of the Geneva Conventions, etc. First, the scary thing about the fog of war in which many Soldiers operate is that there is no one there who can truly tell you what actually happened, save the Soldiers themselves or persons perceived as enemies or hostile civilians. No video, no certain physical evidence, just their statements/testimonies. Who do you believe?
One defendant I had was charged with disobeying his CO’s lawful order, desecration of an Iraqi Soldier’s body, huffing chloroform, and killing dogs and cats. My client was the guy you wanted to be on guard duty when you were sleeping, because he was awake! Finger on the trigger of the saw, picking his teeth with a buck knife, waiting for Hadji to stick his head over the horizon. When his ASV was taking firing, he risked his life to pull a Gomer Pyle PVT, behind the ASV. He got an ARCOM for Valor. That PVT testified against him. Still, I beat 2 out of 4 of the charges, and the deal for jail time.
He was busted from E6 to E1, but given no jail time, and retained on Active Duty. People thought I was Johnny Cochran. I had tell him he couldn’t vote. When Abu Ghraib broke, the post CO signed papers putting him out of the Army. Did he have issues? Sure! The best Soldiers are rarely the saniest — given the insanity of war — how could they be!?
I was intrigued to read that Hegseth is “requesting nominations” for their replacements. I assume this isn’t the usual process for filling senior vacancies in the US military.
Hegseth has made a point of declaring his job is to be a “disruptor”. Appointing facially unqualified officers to senior positions is certainly disruptive. Perhaps we’ll see reservist JAG majors and colonels put into the top jobs, to shake things up a bit.
And of course many coups in history were enabled by disaffected second-rank officers making common cause with right-wing extremists.
When calling someone a jagoff, it is exactly what it is – a jagoff is a waste of sperm. That is what the term means. I am sure many men and women have called Mr. Hegseth the same exact term many times to his face, or after having the displeasure of his company. I cannot think of a more appropriate term to be associated with Peter Hegseth.
Trumpism, like most fascist regimes, is largely based on theater and images.
They want the image of tough warriors, not effective use of power.
The way that Third World regimes can’t keep the power on or catch a pickpocket but can terrorize civilians.
What were the charges of war crimes against the soldiers whom Hesgeth defended?
The war crimes he was against were defined as ‘executions’ and tried to cover up the crimes.
Now, what soldiers and what were the crimes allegedly committed?
That is a crucial part of the story.
@Retired TDS Jag Officer – Jolly Rogers Hooah:
Well, that was interesting. I expect that war is insane, and very hard on those who are in the thick of it.
AND, don’t you think that the SecDef should be held to a higher standard? Perhaps we should want a SecDef that isn’t insane? What Pete Hegseth is today is not how all combat veterans end up, that’s pretty clear. So I’m not disqualifying everyone who has served in combat role, just the ones that have decided that rules are stupid, and they know better, because they are such “manly” men.
I have seen teenagers with his kind of attitude. I have managed to help a group of adults turn one around. It’s possible. Some people bear the pressure. Others crack. They shouldn’t lead the Pentagon.
@Argon: He was in the JAG Corps as a Reserve colonel. These are the three-star heads of the JAG Corps of their services.
Major General Charlie Dunlap (retired Deputy USAF JAG – now law professor at Duke) has some thoughts on this that I heartily recommend reading (5 min). His concluding thoughts;
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I’m far removed from my JAG service, helping Reagan & Bush 41 win the Cold War, but timing suggests these 3 are all Biden appointees. Given his politicization of the Pentagon, probably smart to start fresh at the top of each JAGC..