National Security Agency Director Gen. Haugh fired, civilian deputy director reassigned

The alleged ties to the podcaster has already been denied byt the admin and I don't believe the story. She may think she has that influence, but I highly doubt it.

I want a leader who doesn't play politics, advances the capabilities of Cyber and Intel, and builds a better workforce within those communities, growing better leaders who are not risk adverse becasue they are more concerned about CYA vs advancing the mission. Gen Haugh appeared to me to be a good cyber leader, but the larger AF (and DoD in general) had a long way to go in growing the cyber mission forces in terms of leaders and highly capable people. I left because I could not take the toxic leadership issues anymore. One could say that's on Gen Haugh, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt at the time because what I was seeing was the leadership in between him to me was not effectively carrying out his vision. It was a mixture of their not understanding cyber, constantly refusing to allow their people to push innovative ideas, and far too much risk adverse approach to everything. Put simply, leadership did not know or trust their own people, and I could see the frustration coming out of Gen Haugh prior to him leading CYBERCOM and NSA. Even worse, there was far too many people that did not belong there and needed to be removed (not just the leadership level). Culture change was very much needed, which is why Sec Hegseth's vision of a warrior culture resonates with me. Was Gen Haugh on board with this? I couldn't say because I'm no longer in that community anymore. When cyber started in the Air Force (and I was there), we had innovation, trust, respect, and the willingness from our leadership to enable us to make positive impacts, despite them pissing off non-cyber leaders (who took it personally instead of constructively). A decade later that started to decline as toxic leaders found their way into the space. Fast forward another decade and I decided I could not stand it anymore when commanders would second guess those that had ben doing cyber long before them.

In the end, I'm not looking at the speculation from the world of the media, which has zero insight into this world. I don't believe a podcaster had any significant impact (if any) to this decision, but I am still voicing my concern in seeing a General I believed to be a positive influence in the cyber community go. This same general was also around during the 1st Trump admin, in which he oversaw all kinds of actions in cyber for the president. Actions which completely debunked the notion that Trump was in bed with the Russians. This included the missions performed for Ukraine too. So all I can do is scratch my head and wonder what's behind this. I don't blame Trump for being distrustful, especially after watching what some people did and attempted to do during his first term. However, at some point you have to find a balance.

Maj Kevin "Mac" McLaughlin - I understand the struggles you experienced in developing leaders in a brand new branch.
On a much smaller scale, in California, we dealt with many of the the same issues as we stood up new cyber units with leadership that did not have the benefit of growing up in the brand new branch, and we made a few selections that did not pan out, in both leadership and rank and file, but we also got a smart bunch of kids who took to their new roles like fish to water.

Maj Kevin "Mac" McLaughlin - Rsik aversion is a FT Meade "perk" not an obstacle SMH

CSM Chuck Stafford - That aversion wasn't experienced in Ft Meade for me (I was never assigned there... Just TDYs). In fact, I usually experienced better climates when working alongside the folks at CYBERCOM and NSA vs at the AF unit level with the ADCON leadership, many of which had little to no understanding of the operational side of things and yet they acted as if they were the OPCON leadership.

This is why I spoke out. I knew Gen Haugh, worked for him, and stated I’m concerned with this move.