Adm. Alvin Holsey Was Right to Ask Questions. Every Service Member Must Do the Same

The four-star commander's ouster underscores the challenges the military faces when serving a Trump administration unconcerned with issuing legally ambiguous orders.

Adm. Alvin Holsey (Screenshot)

There is no such thing as a coincidence.

My grandfather would lean back in his office chair, smirk and say that phrase to me over and over again through the years when we discussed uncanny moments. He applied the notion to mundane events, like the timing of one of my unannounced visits aligning perfectly with one of my cousins’ visits. He also applied it to huge moments that impacted an entire election, like in July 2016 when Donald Trump asked Russia to “find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” which years later was confirmed as around the same day that Russians began targeting Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

I have no doubt that he would use that same phrase when evaluating the unexpected resignation of Adm. Alvin Holsey, a four-star commander with an impeccable record and the first Black person to head the U.S. Southern Command, and the revelation from the Wall Street Journal that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth asked Holsey to resign, a story that ran mere hours before a classified Congressional briefing where elected officials would see footage of lethal attacks, including a double strike, on boats in the Caribbean, or on “narco-terrorists” as the White House claims.

The news about Holsey added more context to the Washington Post report that claimed during the first strike on Sept. 2, Hegseth gave an order to “kill everybody,” which Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley denied during the classified Congressional briefing, according to Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). The WSJ report also increased bipartisan questions and public scrutiny about the legality of the strikes ordered by Hegseth and President Donald Trump. And the news clarified that Holsey, an admiral with 37 years of military experience, questioned Hegseth, a former Army National Guardsman who is better known as a longtime Fox News host, about military operations and deadly strikes in the territory under his command. As a result, Holsey was forced out.