The Army Fires 3rd Command Sergeant Major in a Month: Command Sgt. Maj. Harold "Ed" Jarrel

Command Sgt. Maj. Harold “Ed” Jarrell has been relieved as the senior enlisted for the Army’s 1st Information Operations Command, an Army spokesperson confirmed, marking the third time within a month and the second within a week, that the Army has fired a command sergeant major of a brigade or larger unit as per Task and Purpose.

Jarrell’s firing comes one week after Command Sgt. Major Veronica E. Knapp was relieved as the senior enlisted leader for Joint Task Force-National Capital Region/United States Army Military District of Washington.

On July 16, the Army also fired Command Sgt. Maj. Matthew Carlson, the former senior enlisted leader for the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vicenza, Italy.

Jarrell was fired due to a "loss of trust and confidence in his ability to lead effectively," Maj. Lindsay Roman, a spokesperson for U.S. Army Cyber Command, told Military.com, declining to go into detail

"Loss of trust and confidence" is the go-to line for the service when a senior official is fired. Those reasons could range from immoral conduct, poor performance or criminal activity -- though Jarrell was not facing any military criminal charges as of Thursday, according to a review of the service's legal docket.

Though Jarrell’s unit is dubbed a ‘command,’ it is a brigade-level unit composed of two battalions garrisoned at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, making Jerrell the junior of the three recently relieved CSMs. The unit falls within the Army’s Intelligence and Security Command, which itself is a subordinate unit within Army Cyber Command. For military cyber units, ‘information operations’ covers the murky world of electronic warfare system, computer network operations or ‘hacking,’ psychological operations and deceptions. The 1st IOC, according to its website, performs Info Environment Analysis, open source intelligence gathering and “social media overwatch.”

Jarrell has a fullly accomplished Army resume: He initially enlisted into the National Guard in 1999 as an infantryman, according to his military record, and eventually transferred to active duty, spending much of his platoon-level time with the 10th Mountain Division. He changed jobs to counterintelligence in 2009.

He served as a Ranger School instructor; deployed eight times, including four tours to Afghanistan; and earned a spot on the commandant's list for every noncommissioned officer school he attended, including the Sergeants Major Academy. He served in counterintelligence roles in 10th Special Forces Group and the 75th Ranger Regiment. His awards include five Army Commendation Medals, four Army Achievement Medals, and the Combat Infantryman Badge.

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