Hegseth's Pentagon Shake-Up Steamrolls Ahead As Last Man Out of Afghanistan Gets Shown the Door

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The man who was the last American soldier to leave Afghanistan during the disastrous military withdrawal of August 2021 has submitted his resignation at the request of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. U.S. Army Gen. Christopher Donahue, who currently serves as commanding general of U.S. Army Europe and Africa and commander of NATO’s Allied Land Command, will relinquish his command on July 2, 2026, a spokeswoman for the Army confirmed Wednesday.

The move is widely seen as part of the ongoing efforts by Hegseth to reorganize the Pentagon, in part by shrinking the number of generals in active service and growing the number of lower-level troops. To date, Hegseth has removed over a dozen senior military leaders, including former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown and former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti.

After 34 years of service, four-star General Chris Donahue submitted his retirement papers this week. He has led at numerous special operations commands, including 1st SFOD-D (Delta Force) and JSOC.
In the left photo, he's famously pictured boarding a C-17 at Hamid Karzai… pic.twitter.com/JkmOOd5HKk
— Special Ops Magazine (@specialopsmag) June 24, 2026

After 34 years of service, four-star General Chris Donahue submitted his retirement papers this week. He has led at numerous special operations commands, including 1st SFOD-D (Delta Force) and JSOC.
In the left photo, he's famously pictured boarding a C-17 at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 30th, 2021. He was the Commander of the 82nd Airborne Division at the time.
He was the last US service member to leave Afghanistan after 20 years of war.
He currently serves as the commander of US Army Europe and Africa.
Thank you for your service, Chris.

Donahue has served in the Army for over 30 years, with stints commanding Delta Force and the 82nd Airborne.

A West Point graduate and a career special operations commander, Donahue led the Delta Force units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was then picked to be the 82nd Airborne Division commander from July 2020 to March 2022, before being appointed to his current position by Biden in December 2024.
As a top commander in Europe, Donahue coordinated military aid to Ukraine after the Russian invasion in February 2022. Officials told Fox News that his involvement in that war has made him the US Army's preeminent expert on drone warfare.

However, he may be best known as the man tasked with overseeing security at Hamid Karzai International Airport during the frenzied and catastrophic withdrawal. As such, he was the last U.S. soldier to leave Afghanistan, and was shown in a Pentagon photograph boarding the last C-17 out of Kabul.

Pete Hegseth Gives the Army Chief of Staff His Walking Papers

There was a lot more to Donahue's evacuation story than shown in that pictures, as Jen Van Laar's exclusive reporting from October of 2021 revealed. Before that photo was snapped, Donahue had apparently added to the chaotic environment in his quest to bring home a war trophy. Here's Jen:

In a number of articles penned in the following days, Donahue is characterized as “uniquely qualified” for that moment in time and generally depicted as a humble, understated leader of his division.
Unfortunately, everything isn’t quite as it may seem. During the last hours of the evacuation, according to troops under his command and as documented by photographs and witness statements, Donahue ordered all of the passengers aboard a C-17 transport plane to disembark so he could have a souvenir loaded onto the plane. That souvenir, or “war trophy,” was an inoperable Taliban-owned Toyota Hilux with a fully operational Russian ZU-23 anti-aircraft autocannon mounted in the bed. Once the Hilux was loaded passengers were allowed back on the plane, but, of course, there wasn’t room for all of them. According to troops on the scene, at least 50 people and perhaps as many as 100 people were left at Kabul to make room for the Hilux.

Not only that, but Donahue is said to have coordinated with the Taliban ahead of the military withdrawal, providing them "with a full manifest of passengers aboard the flights including passport information, photos, and biometric information for those passengers. The flights included US troops, Afghans who were employed by the Department of Defense, key human intelligence (HUMINT) assets, and other SIV applicants and their families."

The Pentagon has not given a reason for Hegseth requesting Donahue's retirement, but it's expected that Donahue's deputy, Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, will perform the duties of the commanding general beginning July 2. Lt. Gen. Kevin Admiral, the current commander of the Army’s III Armored Corps, is expected to be nominated to take over the role permanently.

Editor's Note: Thanks to President Trump and War Secretary Pete Hegseth's leadership, the warrior ethos is coming back to America's military.

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