War Secretary Pete Hegseth shook things up at the Pentagon during Holy Week when he fired several top generals — including Major General William Green Jr. the U.S. Army chief of chaplains.
Green’s job as the Army chief of chaplains is to advise the Army Chief of Staff on issues of religion and morality, as well as to oversee the Army Chaplain Corps — and he was three years into what would normally be a four-year term when Hegseth removed him from the role.
Green served as an enlisted soldier prior to becoming an ordained minister, and has served as a chaplain in the Army since the 1990s. His promotion to Major General was recent, according to Military.com, and he had become the Army chief of chaplains in 2023.
While no official reason has been given for Green’s termination — marking the first time that an Army chief of chaplains has been fired since the position was created under the National Defense Act of 1920 — Hegseth had previously voiced his displeasure with Green’s Army Spiritual Fitness Guide, published in 2025.
The 112-page guide — and accompanying Battle Book — featured “secular-inclusive” principles aimed at encouraging resilience and strength. It was written to be a part of the Army’s Holistic Health and Fitness program (H2F), for which development began in 2024 during former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s tenure.
The guide was published in August of 2025, and Hegseth disliked it so much that he ordered the War Department to scrap it entirely by December, less than six months after it was implemented.
“It mentions God one time. That’s it. It mentions feelings 11 times. It even mentions playfulness, whatever that is, nine times,” Hegseth said at the time, complaining that in the military, “chaplains have been minimized, viewed by many as therapists instead of ministers.”
The guide was summarily scrubbed from the Army’s website.
Two other top generals were removed the same week: Gen. David Hodne, a former Army Ranger in charge of the Army’s Transformation and Training Command, and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy A. George.
