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Army-affiliated social media accounts torched after backlash of celebrating Duckworth

April 16, 2026 | | Print Article

A bunch of Army-affiliated social media accounts were torched this week after they celebrated Democrat Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Army National Guard veteran.

The posts were published by Army social media accounts tied to Soldier for Life (SFL), an Army program “that connects soldiers, veterans and their families to resources ranging from employment to health care to retirement,” according to NOTUS.

After the posts were published, searing criticism began pouring in from other veterans, including combat vets, who felt that Duckworth didn’t deserve to be celebrated by the Trump administration.

Among the critics was Chase Spears, a former Army paratrooper and veteran of the war in Afghanistan:

“Senator Tammy Duckworth is a vet, but one who has dedicated her career to division and infantile displays in the halls of congress,” he wrote in the tweet above.

In response to the criticism, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll ordered the deletion of every “Soldier for Life”-affiliated account.

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This decision had the unintended aftereffect of making critics like Spears wonder “what else” the Army is hiding:

An Army spokesperson, meanwhile, told The Hill that the decision to delete the accounts was “simply a circumstance of the Army handling routine Army business.”

“When this legacy account came to Army leadership’s attention, we realized it was not directly managed by qualified Army personnel and was taken offline, just like the hundreds of accounts before it,” they said.

“In December 2025 via Army Directive 2025-25, the Army began closing hundreds of social media accounts that weren’t properly managed by qualified Army personnel, were ineffective, or defunct and mismanaged,” the spokesperson added.

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According to NOTUS, the deletion of the accounts is in line with the memo Driscoll signed in December titled “Streamlining and Clarifying Army Social Media Use for Organizations.”

The memo “stipulates that any accounts not run by qualified and authorized personnel be deactivated.”

During Driscoll’s confirmation hearings last year, Duckworth complained about his alleged “utter lack of qualifications to lead an organization as big and complex as the Army.” She later voted against his confirmation.

Duckworth has been a staunch opponent of the Trump administration in a number of other ways as well. Speaking on MS NOW last month, she kvetched about President Donald Trump’s war in Iran.

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“What we have right now is a president who launched a war of choice without truly thinking it through and just threw our troops into harm’s way without any way of safeguarding them,” she said, adding that the administration had “no plan on what the next step is.”

“If Pete Hegseth actually paid attention in officer basic course, he’d know that any operations order ends with: What is the end state? There is no end state here that they’ve been able to articulate,” she continued.

She also accused Trump administration officials of “hiding their incompetence behind the valor of our military men and women.”

“As if to say that questioning why we’re at war is to question the valor of our military — not at all,” she said. “I know that our military will always do the best job possible, and that means that we are beholden, as legislators, to do our job before we ask the military to do their job.”

And then in remarks made on the Senate floor this Wednesday, Duckworth claimed President Donald Trump cares more about saving face than leading his troops.

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Vivek Saxena
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