Chief of Naval Operations

Lisa Franchetti, who was chief of naval operations and the first woman on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He reported on foreign affairs for The Atlantic for many years, and is a former member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel.

On Friday, President Donald Trump fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the chief of naval operations, and the vice chief of staff of the Air Force, as well as the judge advocate generals of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, simultaneously resegregating America’s military leadership and eliminating a critical safeguard against the execution of unlawful orders—a decision tantamount to flipping a weapon from safety to fire.

Lisa Franchetti, the chief of naval operations, were said to be emblems of “wokeness” and “DEI,” which Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has decried as the scourge of the military.

Don Pilling—at the time the vice chief of naval operations, a brilliant destroyer commander with a Ph.D. in mathematics—to be one of his top aides for plans and policy.