Braxton Taylor
Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield has been fired in what appears to be a growing purge of top-ranking military officials by the Trump administration, multiple officials confirmed to Military.com.
Chatfield, who began her career as a helicopter pilot and was the first woman to be president of the Naval War College, had been serving as a senior official at NATO and was one of just a handful of women who occupied the highest ranks of the Navy.
Her ouster comes only days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, possibly on orders from the White House, fired the four-star general who ran the National Security Agency. Chatfield is also the second naval officer and woman to be fired by Hegseth, who also relieved Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Navy’s top military officer and first woman to hold the job, shortly after he took office. President Donald Trump fired Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan, the first woman to hold that position, during his first days in office.
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Officials in Hegseth’s office did not immediately confirm the move or offer a statement on why Chatfield was relieved or by whom — something that would normally be expected and widely shared for the firing of such a high-ranking officer.
Reuters was the first outlet to report Chatfield’s firing.
Chatfield has been targeted for years by conservatives who have sought to purge the military of officers they deem “woke,” and after Trump was elected in November, conservative advocacy groups included her name on lists of officers they wanted Trump and Hegseth to fire.
The main conservative charge against her is that, in 2015, she gave a speech at an event to mark Women’s Equality Day, which celebrates the day the 19th Amendment was ratified to give women the right to vote. During the speech, Chatfield noted that most members of Congress have historically been men and so issues affecting women have sometimes gone unaddressed, according to an Army article about the speech.
She also said in the speech that “our diversity is our strength” — a line that for years was an anodyne talking point said by most military officers but that conservatives have since turned into a major transgression.
Hegseth has repeatedly said the idea that diversity is a strength is “the single dumbest phrase in military history.”
Chatfield’s appointment as the U.S. representative to NATO’s military committee was one of the hundreds of military promotions that were delayed for months in 2023 when Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., protested against a Biden administration Pentagon policy related to abortion. Tuberville’s blockade was not directed at particular officers, but conservative groups highlighted Chatfield as one of the “woke” officers Tuberville was stalling as they cheered him on.
After Tuberville relented, Chatfield’s promotion was briefly delayed again by Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., who specifically targeted a handful of officers he said championed diversity initiatives, before he quickly gave up his blockade on all but one officer.
The silence from the Defense Department and Hegseth’s office on the firing is not new.
When Hegseth was presumably ordered to fire Gen. Timothy Haugh, the head of the National Security Agency and the nation’s top cyberwarfare command, officials in his office couldn’t even say whether Hegseth had a role in the firing a day after news outlets first reported the news on Thursday.
“We’ve seen the reports but have nothing to offer at this time,” a defense official told Military.com on Friday, before adding that they would “provide more information when it becomes available.”
Later that day, the Pentagon’s top spokesman, Sean Parnell, issued a statement that thanked Haugh “for his decades of service to our nation” but did not say why he was fired or whether the decision was made by Hegseth or Trump.
Meanwhile, far-right activist Laura Loomer — who once promoted the baseless conspiracy theory that the Sept. 11 terror attacks were an “inside job” — took credit for Haugh’s firing on social media, saying that he and his deputy “have been disloyal to President Trump.”
Multiple outlets reported that Loomer met with Trump in the Oval Office on Thursday ahead of Haugh’s firing.
Military officers take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. They do not swear loyalty to a president or political party.
Hegseth and the Trump administration have also never explained why they fired Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown, Franchetti, and Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Jim Slife — all terminated on the same day in February.
Hegseth took aim at Franchetti in his most recent book, claiming she was unqualified for the job and was chosen for the role because “politics is all about optics instead of results.”
“Naval operations being weakened won’t matter to anyone,” he added.
While a replacement for Brown has been nominated, both Franchetti and Slife’s positions remain vacant and filled with officers who are in acting capacities and being asked to perform two jobs at once.
Related: No More Female 4-Stars: Franchetti Firing Leaves Top Ranks Filled by Men
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