Army officials reversed an announcement Tuesday that the general removed in the wake of a scathing report on Fort Hood, Texas, would be made deputy commander of U.S. Army North.
Maj. Gen. Scott Efflandt will instead be reassigned as “the special assistant” to the commander of U.S. Army North, said Army spokeswoman Cynthia O. Smith. The announcement was published to the Defense Department’s website and has since been changed.
Smith said the “original announcement was wrong,” but did not say why the mistake had been made.
“This is a temporary reassignment pending final outcome of the AR 15-6 investigation,” Smith said in an email, referencing an investigation led by Gen. John Murray into the actions by Fort Hood’s chain-of-command following the death of Spc. Vanessa Guillen and the sexual harassment she allegedly faced.
Efflandt and 13 other Fort Hood leaders were relieved or suspended following the release of an independent committee’s report on the command climate at the central Texas installation.
The committee determined there was an environment at Fort Hood that allowed sexual assault and harassment to proliferate, and that Army CID agents at the post were under-experienced and over-assigned, an issue that agents say exists across the force.
It was well known that the risk for sexual assault at Fort Hood was persistently high, according to the report. This was especially true in the brigades within 1st Cavalry Division and 3rd Cavalry Regiment, where women were first introduced into armored and infantry units more than four years ago, the report added.
But the issues at Fort Hood predated Guillen’s case and Efflandt’s tenure in charge. Post leadership “knew or should have known of the high risk of sexual assault and harassment” at the post, the report states.
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“As early as 2014, there were issues that were called out. If you look at it in terms of risk management, it became a known risk very early in the process,” Chris Swecker, a former FBI inspector who served on the committee that compiled the report, said in December.
Efflandt had been in line to take over 1st Amored Division at another Texas post, Fort Bliss, but that movement was delayed and ultimately derailed by the events surrounding Guillen’s disappearance and alleged murder inside an armory on post.
Efflandt was left in charge of Fort Hood while the post’s top officer, Lt. Gen. Pat White, had been deployed to Iraq for much of the past year.
White remains in charge of Fort Hood since his return from Iraq. Smith, the Army spokeswoman, said White has not faced any punishment.
“Relief or suspension is not considered punishment. It is an administrative mechanism to ensure that our soldiers always have the best qualified and capable leaders and commanders,” Smith said in an email. “However, commanders may take punitive action in the future based on administrative investigations.”
Kyle Rempfer was an editor and reporter who has covered combat operations, criminal cases, foreign military assistance and training accidents. Before entering journalism, Kyle served in U.S. Air Force Special Tactics and deployed in 2014 to Paktika Province, Afghanistan, and Baghdad, Iraq.
