DeLauro Statement on Firing of Army’s Chief of Chaplains

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03) released a statement responding to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's decision to fire the Army's Chief of Chaplains Major General William Green Jr.

"For the first time in more than a century, the United States Army no longer has its Chief of Chaplains. Secretary Hegseth fired Major General William Green Jr. last week - during Holy Week - without explanation and without cause.

"Major General Green served as an enlisted soldier before answering a higher call and becoming an ordained minister. He returned to the Army as a chaplain in 1994 and spent the next three decades as a source of spiritual strength, moral guidance, and quiet counsel for our troops and their families. He was doing his job with honor and distinction. That, apparently, was a problem to Pete Hegseth.

"This administration has made clear it views chaplains as instruments to further its ideology. They want loyalists. Look no further than Secretary Hegseth's personal minister, Douglas Wilson, who wants to create a theocratic society that strips women of rights and ends religious freedom.

"As President Trump posts on Truth Social that 'a whole civilization will die tonight' - threatening to end innocent civilian lives and erase a millennia of history and culture - the Army has no Chief of Chaplains to speak to the moral weight of this moment.

"At the moment of our greatest moral peril, President Trump and Secretary Hegseth are silencing our voices of conscience. That should alarm every American."