US Navy Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield was the only woman on NATO’s military committee. Alas, the Trump administration fired her over the weekend.
US officials said on Monday that Adm Christopher Grady reached out to Chatfield via call. The acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ultimately told her that the administration had pulled the plug on her role. AP News reported that she wasn’t given a reason as she was fired. However, officials pointed reportedly pointed towards her previous diversity-supporting remarks.
Shoshana Chatfield’s firing made headlines as three US officials outed the development while maintaining their anonymity. They further claimed that Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth greenlit the decision to go in a different direction. It remains unclear if he made up his mind due to any direct orders from President Donald Trump.
Who is Shoshana Chatfield?
The Navy pilot is the third top female officer to be fired since Donald Trump was re-elected. The conservative American Accountability Foundation shortlisted Shoshana Chatfield as “woke” along with other senior military officers. In a letter to Hegseth, it said, “purging the woke from the military is imperative.”
Having commanded joint reconstruction team in Afghanistan, Chatfield was one of the 32 representatives on NATO’s military committee, which is the main source of military advice to the North Atlantic Council and NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group.
As for her educational qualifications, the US Navy vice admiral graduated from Boston University and has a master’s degree from Harvard University and a doctorate from the University of San Diego. The Garden Grove, California, native deployed to the Pacific and the Persian Gulf as a pilot. The Bronze Star awardee also served as the senior military assistant to the supreme allied commander Europe.
Why was Shoshana Chatfield fired?
Calling for those associated with diversity, equity an inclusion policies to be dismissed, American Accountability Foundation stated in the letter to Hegseth that there was no room for such issues in the ranks. In the message to the Defence Secretary, the foundation cited Chatfield’s comments on LinkedIn supporting a diversity summit. It also alluded to a speech she gave at Women’s Equality Day in 2015.
Noting that Chatfield highlighted how women empowerment could play a significant role in unlocking human potential, the foundation quoted her saying, “our diversity is our strength.” Hegseth, on his part, isn’t a fan of this phrase, either.
Prior to Shoshan Chatfield being fired, Hegseth announced in February that he was removing Adm Lisa Franchetti, the chief of naval operations, over the same so-called woke policies. The day after he was sworn in, Trump fired Coast Guard Commandant Adm Linda Fagan.