The Truth On President Recent Firing Of My Father

4 min readNov 22, 2020

Source: pic via

I was working out on Tuesday morning when I got the call from my mom. She doesn’t usually call in the morning unless something is happening.

She said, “Hey. So just a heads up. Your dad is leaving a bit early. There’s something breaking on Twitter right now.”

I got off the phone and thought, “Here we go.”

Three years ago, my dad took the job as the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. He oversaw a number of big agencies. The heads of the National Security Agency (NSA), The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and others, reported directly to him. That all ended on Tuesday night at midnight.

I wanted to clear up a few things because my world has been blowing up over the past few days.

The context because it matters

A military career is very much a family experience. When a soldier takes new jobs and promotions, that almost always means lots of change and moves (for us, 12 moves before I turned 18).

Consequently, you are always pushing reset. Your dad’s career becomes particularly relevant in your own life. You are primed to pay attention, even after you leave the nest.

We never thought it would go this far. Back when dad was a junior officer, he planned on doing his 20+ years. Then he was going to take a quiet job as a high school math teacher. He went on this great run, but it wasn’t without merit.

Dad finally got out of the military and landed a good corporate job. He was building his finances back up. Having two screw-off kids and constantly moving wasn’t good for my parent’s retirement account.

He got the call to serve as undersecretary. I was actually apprehensive about him taking the job. He already had a job and a boss he liked. The president was already churning through employees with an unceremonious and troubling velocity.

Dad has always felt a strong calling to serve the country. He saw this job as an opportunity to help improve national security. He moved forward. I had the unique experience of watching him get grilled during his confirmation hearings on C-SPAN.

Watching John McCain question your dad on national television is totally surreal. I would equate it to those Olympic videos of parents squirming as they watch their kids on the balance beams. Only, instead of “don’t fall, don’t fall”, it is “don’t say anything stupid”.

“I heard your dad got fired!”

After I got off the phone with my mom, I went on Twitter and it was right there in my feed:

Author via Twitter

I’ll admit I had a moment of rage, “Really?”

Dad was leaving this job anyway. He’d been planning it for months. And this was to be his last month, as planned.

Monday’ firing of the Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, was completely unexpected. It had the entire Pentagon on edge. But then it got worse. Trump knows the election is slipping away. His court cases aren’t going well. Pentagon officials were worried he’d act out. And, sure enough, he did.

Dad’s resignation letter was already waiting for weeks. The new Secretary of Defense iterated the White House might be wanting him to leave early. Then, they realized early meant that very day.

An aide came to my dad and said, “I saved you for last because you’re one of the nicest ones I’ve dealt with.”

The aide then said, “The White House wants your resignation letter by 4 PM or you’ll be fired.”

The Truth On President Recent Firing Of My Father

The context because it matters

“I heard your dad got fired!”

Written by Milena Habboretro