Submitted by John Tato
For more than a century, Stars and Stripes has performed a role no Pentagon public-affairs office can fill: providing American service members and their families with news that is written for them but not controlled by those who command them.
The paper first appeared during the Civil War and was revived during World War I by General John J. Pershing, Commander in Chief of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in Europe. Pershing understood that honest reporting strengthened morale because soldiers trusted a newspaper willing to tell them the truth. During World War II, General and later President, Dwight D. Eisenhower was equally explicit: “Stars and Stripes is the soldiers’ paper, and we won’t interfere.” He also said it should resemble a soldier’s hometown newspaper, subject to censorship only when military security required it.
That independence has allowed Stars and Stripes to report repeatedly on matters the military establishment might prefer to minimize: substandard housing, inadequate medical care, sexual assault, suicide, long deployments, family separations, equipment failures and policies that affect the daily lives of service members. Such stories can embarrass military leaders, but embarrassment is not a threat to national security.
The newspaper recently reported on the lengthy deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln, including shortages, deteriorating living conditions and serious concern about sailors’ mental health. The carrier departed San Diego in November 2025 with approximately 5,000 sailors and endured about nine months at sea, with only two brief port visits. Those reports were especially important in Coronado and the greater San Diego area, where many crew members and their families live.
Soon afterward, the Pentagon fired publisher Max Lederer, editor-in-chief Erik Slavin, and reporter Lara Korte, citing insubordination after the journalists publicly defended the paper’s editorial independence. The Pentagon had previously dismissed ombudsman Jacqueline Smith after she criticized proposed restrictions. Whatever administrative explanations are offered, dismissing senior journalists after critical reporting and public opposition to censorship inevitably looks like retaliation.
That appearance is itself damaging. Service members will reasonably wonder whether future stories have been softened, suppressed or shaped to please political appointees. Families may question whether reports concerning their loved ones are independent news or approved messaging. A newspaper stripped of credibility cannot fulfill its mission.
General and the first President of the US, George Washington, addressing Army officers in 1783, warned that if freedom of speech were taken away, “dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the slaughter.”
Washington and Eisenhower were not commentators observing the military from afar. They commanded American forces in existential wars and understood that discipline and free expression are not mutually exclusive.
The contrast with President Donald Trump is difficult to ignore. Trump received four educational deferments and later a medical deferment during the Vietnam War. He never had to endure deployment, separation from family or the consequences of commanders being insulated from uncomfortable facts. Yet his administration now appears prepared to weaken a newspaper created to give those who do serve an independent voice.
Congress established protections for Stars and Stripes because it recognized the inherent danger of placing a newspaper for service members under the editorial control of the same department it must scrutinize. Congress should investigate these dismissals, restore genuinely independent leadership and strengthen the statutory firewall against political or command interference.
Supporting the troops does not mean shielding their leaders from criticism. It means ensuring that service members and their families receive truthful reporting about the institution for which they sacrifice so much. The generals who led Americans through the nation’s greatest wars understood that principle. Today’s civilian leadership should remember it.
John Tato
