The Pentagon announced Wednesday Navy Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield was fired from her position as U.S. representative to NATO’s military committee “due to a loss of confidence in her ability to lead.”
Chatfield, one of only a few female three-star officers in the Navy and the first woman to lead the Naval War College, served in Afghanistan as a helicopter pilot. In her most recent position, she was assigned to the alliance’s nuclear planning group, acting as a liaison between military and political leadership.
Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, a persistent critic of the Trump administration, said Chatfield wasn’t fired because of her job performance but rather for disloyalty to the commander in chief and her boss at the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
“They fired Navy Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield — not because she couldn’t do the job, but because she wouldn’t hang up pictures of Trump and Hegseth,” Crockett alleged, without evidence. “This ain’t about merit — it’s about ego.”
Though Crockett’s allegations have yet to be proved, they were amplified across social media by Trump acolytes who celebrated Chatfield’s departure.
“DEI Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield fired!” proclaimed one X user. “In addition to her inappropriate wokeness, she was also guilty of insubordination by refusing to put up portraits of President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth at NATO. The US Military is being purged of woke wastes. Good riddance!”
The Pentagon has offered no further details on her dismissal. Chatfield has yet to comment.
Chatfield had long been in the crosshairs of MAGA after she was singled out as being overly woke. Newsweek reported she was included by the American Accountability Foundation on a list of senior military officials too preoccupied with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) measures.
The list cited her for using the phrase “Our diversity is our strength” during a 2015 Woman’s Equality Day observance, according to the New York Sun. The letter said Chatfield also posted supportive comments on LinkedIn about a diversity summit and gave a speech in 2015 at Women’s Equality Day.
“Is this someone who should be leading our men and women into battle?” the foundation asked.
The Trump administration clearly thinks she is not. Three unnamed U.S. officials cited by The Associated Press said her support of diversity measures were the apparent reason for Chatfield’s termination. The decision to remove her was made last week, according to the officials, who believed the order to fire her came from Hegseth.
At a February town hall, Hegseth made it clear how he feels about DEI, telling troops “the single dumbest phrase in military history is ‘Our Diversity is Our Strength.'”
Chatfield’s dismissal capped off a week of high-profile firings at the Pentagon that included General Timothy Haugh, head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, and Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the Navy’s top officer and the first woman to become Chief of Naval Operations.
Calling the dismissals “unjustified” and “disgraceful,” Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee criticized Republicans for not speaking out against the firing of senior military officials without explanation.
“The silence from my Republican colleagues is deeply troubling. … I cannot fathom how anyone could stand silently by while the President causes great harm to our military and our nation,” Reed said in a statement.
