The top enlisted soldier leading the Army’s Europe-based airborne brigade was quietly fired last month following an investigation, the service said Sunday.
Command Sgt. Maj. Matthew Carlson was removed from his post as the senior enlisted leader of the 173rd Airborne Brigade on July 16 “due to a loss of trust and confidence in his leadership,” Army spokesperson Neil Ruggiero told Military.com in an email. The phrase is the military’s catch-all term for the myriad reasons why a leader may have been fired.
Ruggiero did not answer by press time whether the unit has named Carlson’s replacement. The command sergeant major’s photo and biography were removed from the brigade’s website.
It’s unclear why Carlson was under investigation or what job he was placed into after removal.
Read Next: US Hands Over the Last Military Base in Niger to the Ruling Junta
Carlson was fired about 16 months after he arrived at the 173rd, based in Vicenza, Italy, in March 2023. The 173rd Airborne Brigade’s “Sky Soldiers” serve as the Army’s contingency response force in Europe, available in the event of crises across Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
Paratroopers with the 173rd routinely train with NATO forces to bolster European security and were among the last U.S. troops to train in Ukraine in the fall of 2021 before Russian forces invaded the country in early 2022.
That training was part of Rapid Trident, an annual tactical exercise that had…
