The four-star general commanding the Army Materiel Command has been suspended from command and referred to the Department of the Army Inspector General for investigation by Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth. General Charles Hamilton, who commanded the behemoth Army Materiel Command, was credibly accused of using his personal influence to try to place a female subordinate in an assignment that virtually guaranteed she would be selected for promotion to colonel.

Army General Charles Hamilton, who oversees Army Materiel Command, Pressured Assessment Panel to Help Career of 'Ineffective' Officer https://t.co/42Itnq7yRn

— Bob Hein (@the_sailor_dog) March 20, 2024

To understand the issue, let's take a quick look at the backstory. Command is the coin of the realm in the Army. You must command successfully at every level to grow up to be a general. Virtually all captains get the opportunity to command, and a captain can't be promoted to major without a successful command (humble brag: I commanded a company for 25 months). The big cut comes at selection for battalion command. About 25% of eligible officers are selected for inclusion on the command list as either a primary or alternate. Without selection to command a battalion, the odds of promotion to colonel, unless you have some exotic skill, drop to close to zero. If you don't make the cut to colonel, you don't get to command a brigade. If you don't command a brigade, the bar to promotion to brigadier general can look damned daunting.

In 2019, the Army added a new twist to the process called the Battalion Command Assessment Program. Under this program, the candidates are brought together for a 5-day program that includes a physical fitness test, psychological evaluation, and, most interestingly, a 360-degree evaluation where peers and subordinates are asked to evaluate the candidates. The final phase is a panel interview by several senior general officers. You can read more about the process here.

One of the officers selected for battalion command was an unnamed female lieutenant colonel who worked for General Hamilton as his military assistant and assistant executive officer. When she went through the selection process, the board declined her with a vote of 0-5 for having "counterproductive" leadership traits.

Hamilton sprang into action.

Hamilton immediately asked for the lieutenant colonel to be re-paneled, effectively getting another chance -- an unheard-of move, according to some Army officials familiar with the process. Officers who fail typically have to wait a year to try again.

[Director of the Army Command Assessment Program, Col. Robert] O'Brien granted the repanel "solely based" on Hamilton's request, according to his own memo. However, Col. Townley Hedrick, chief of staff of the Command Assessment Program, told the lieutenant colonel she was being re-paneled due to "technical issues," the memo added.

It's unclear what technical issues would warrant a redo of an assessment panel. The next day, Hamilton called Hedrick, thanking him for "playing a part" in re-paneling the lieutenant colonel.

Between the first panel and the redo, Hamilton called three different panel members -- Maj. Gens. Jeth Rey, Trevor Bredenkamp and Hope Rampy -- to discuss the lieutenant colonel, multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation told Military.com. Panelists are supposed to be anonymous to avoid lobbying, one Army official explained, and are often finalized just hours before a panel as a safeguard.

Throughout the morning of the second panel, Hamilton repeatedly sent text messages and called senior assessment staff, including Hedrick and O'Brien, asking about interview results, O'Brien explained in his memo.

At noon, the second panel was complete. The lieutenant colonel was again found unfit for command, but this time in a 2-3 vote, according to a source with direct knowledge of the situation. She was found to have "ineffective" and "counterproductive" leadership qualities.

Hamilton inquired about the results several additional times throughout the day until after 9 p.m. It's unclear when, if ever, the results were formally shared with him.

As a note, the panel members are supposed to be anonymous to prevent this kind of tomfoolery, but someone leaked the names and phone numbers of the panel members to Hamilton so he could lobby them.

The fact that the program director wrote a memo complaining about Hamilton's behavior is extraordinary. What is even more extraordinary is that he caved to the pressure to give this clearly unqualified officer a second chance and that other generals were afraid to say anything.

This was a pressure campaign. [Hamilton] has a lot of influence; this violated the integrity of how the best officers are selected to run units," one general with direct knowledge of the situation told Military.com on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation. "This was abnormal; it was unprofessional. He should have known better."

Things change, but there was a time when the Army had chiefs like John Wickham, Carl Vuono, Gordon Sullivan, and others who would have instantly vaporized the career of any general suspected of meddling with a promotion or selection board. For the centralized promotion system to work, it has to be credible. If generals call board members and throw their weight around to push favorites forward, the whole system fails. Once upon a time, everyone understood that.

Despite failing the selection board twice in 48 hours, somehow, her name appeared on the command selection list, depriving a more qualified officer of the opportunity.

Military Times broke the story on Tuesday, and on Friday, the Army Secretary suspended Hamilton from command and yanked his favorite from the promotion list.

With the visibility this stink is created, it is highly unlikely that Hamilton will be reinstated. I'm not sure I've ever heard of a commander who was suspended from duty being reinstated for obvious reasons. But the signs for the Army aren't great. The very fact that a general officer felt comfortable breaking the anonymity of the board and personally lobbying evaluators to ensure the promotion of a female subordinate is an indictment of the ethos of senior Army leaders. It is hard to believe this is the first time he's done something like this because of the magnitude of his actions. (During my 3+ years as an Army IG investigator, I never encountered someone who had done something really big without a lot of baby steps leading up to it.) How is it that no one noticed and did anything about it?

This is the kind of dry rot that causes institutions to collapse. Unless the command selection process has the general confidence of the officer corps, many eligible officers will leave the service rather than compete in a rigged system. 

I hope the Army Secretary comes down hard in this case and makes an example, but in the current political environment in DOD, I wouldn't count on it.