The Pentagon has fired the commander of its base in Pituffik, Greenland, after she refuted remarks that Vice President JD Vance made during his contentious visit to the semi-autonomous Danish territory last month.
On March 31, three days after Vance’s visit, Col. Susannah Meyers wrote an email to the multinational staff at the Pittufik Space Base in which she struck a far more unified tone than the vice president did in his speech.
“I do not presume to understand current politics, but what I do know is the concerns of the U.S. administration discussed by Vice President Vance on Friday are not reflective of Pituffik Space Base,” Meyers wrote in her email, which was first reported by Military.com.
“I commit that for as long as I am lucky enough to lead this base, all of our flags will fly proudly — together,” she added. (Under a 1951 defense agreement with Denmark, when the installation was known as Thule Air Base, the flags of the United States, Greenland and Denmark are required to be flown on the base.)
During his hourslong trip to the Arctic island, Vance accused Denmark of failing the people of Greenland and said they would be safer under U.S. rule. Vance and second lady Usha Vance had a frosty reception from the territory’s residents, who have largely made it clear that they do not want to be a part of the United States.
On Thursday, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell posted a statement on X announcing that Meyers had been let go “for loss of confidence in her ability to lead.” His statement suggested that Meyers had behaved in a partisan manner, despite the fact that her email explicitly dismissed politics.
“Actions to undermine the chain of command or to subvert President Trump’s agenda will not be tolerated at the Department of Defense,” Parnell wrote in his post, which linked to the article on Military.com.
Meyers is not the first to be punished for displaying less than total fealty to Team Trump. The White House has also purged the Justice Department of career lawyers and replaced them with loyalists. Just last week, a DOJ prosecutor was suspended from his post — two weeks after his promotion — for telling a federal judge that the government had deported a Maryland man to El Salvador by mistake.
