Another One Down: Top Civilian for U.S. Army Calls It Quits
Secretary of the U.S. Army John McHugh has decided to step down by November 1, the Defense Department announced Monday. McHugh, who has served in the role since September 2009, took over during the heat of the fight in Iraq and Afghanistan when the Army had tens of thousands of troops in regular combat. He ...
Secretary of the U.S. Army John McHugh has decided to step down by November 1, the Defense Department announced Monday.
Secretary of the U.S. Army John McHugh has decided to step down by November 1, the Defense Department announced Monday.
McHugh, who has served in the role since September 2009, took over during the heat of the fight in Iraq and Afghanistan when the Army had tens of thousands of troops in regular combat. He then helped to shepherd the force through the start of a series of personnel cuts that have reduced the Army’s end strength by tens of thousands of soldiers, while planning for how to spend money in a tightening fiscal environment.
Monday’s statement said that McHugh “expressed his desire several weeks ago to depart as Secretary of the Army” to Defense Secretary Ash Carter and that he hoped by announcing the November date now, the Army would have plenty of time to find a replacement.
Carter said in a statement that McHugh “has helped lead the Army through a period of challenge and change,” and “every soldier is better off because of his hard work and vision, and so is the country.”
McHugh took the job while still a member of the House of Representatives, where he was a nine-term congressman from an upstate New York district that includes the Army post at Fort Drum. He also served as the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee.
McHugh’s job since then has been to oversee the Army’s personnel and manpower programs, while explaining the service’s accounting issues to Congress and keeping watch over a host of often troubled acquisition programs, a job which he took to in an often blunt manner.
In testimony this past March to a Senate panel on the service’s expensive and often unhappy experiences in trying to buy new helicopters, armored vehicles, and combat and physical training uniforms, he admitted “the Army’s track record on acquisition programs is too often a tale of failure.”
McHugh was also the point man on facing congressional and public anger over the 2010 Arlington National Cemetery scandal. Investigators found dozens of cases where graves had been misidentified or proper records had not been kept, meaning some graves had no paper trail tying them to the service member who was supposed to have been buried there.
He has also been in charge of the service’s controversial — and changing — tattoo policy, which has met with pushback from some heavily-inked combat vets.
McHugh is following Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno out the door, as his four-year term is up in October. Gen. Mark Milley has been tapped to replace Odierno. No replacement has yet been named for McHugh.
Photo credit: U.S. Army
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