Army Shuts Down Social Media Accounts After They Praised Tammy Duckworth’s Service

Dan Driscoll, the secretary of the Army, ordered the deletion of several U.S.-military-associated social media accounts this week after a post celebrating Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth drew negative reactions online.

“Soldier for Life” is an official U.S. Army program that connects soldiers, veterans and their families to resources ranging from employment to health care to retirement. The post detailed Duckworth’s life story and her time as an Army lieutenant colonel. She is an Iraq War veteran who lost both of her legs in 2004 after an attack on her Black Hawk helicopter.

Chase Spears, a former Army paratrooper and veteran of the war in Afghanistan, criticized Duckworth, calling her “one of the most brazenly hostile partisans to have worn the uniform.”

“There are so many warriors worthy of being praised, men and women who didn’t sell their souls along the way. But this is who @SecArmy Dan Driscoll’s Army continues going out of its way to pay homage to,” Spears wrote on X.

A little over 24 hours later, the post was taken down.

Spears noticed the post was gone, and in response said, “The entire @usarmy Soldier for Life Facebook page is now locked down. That’s a violation of @DeptofWar regulations. What else are they hiding?”

Duckworth’s Senate office and the U.S. Army did not immediately respond to requests for comment from NOTUS.

However, a Department of Defense source familiar with the Army’s decision told The Hill that Driscoll ordered all Soldier for Life accounts to be shut down after the negative responses to the post.

An Army spokesperson told the publication that the decision to deactivate the Soldier for Life 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,” the spokesperson said, adding that since December, the Army has shut down “hundreds” of accounts that were not managed by qualified personnel.

The deletion spree comes after Driscoll signed a memo in December titled “Streamlining and Clarifying Army Social Media Use for Organizations,” which stipulates that any accounts not run by qualified and authorized personnel be deactivated. Remaining accounts were to be registered with the Army’s social media directory by Feb. 28.

Duckworth, a Purple Heart recipient who served more than two decades in both the Army Reserve and Illinois Army National Guard, retired from the Army in 2014 and became a senator in 2017.

As part of Driscoll’s confirmation process in February 2025, Duckworth, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, asked Driscoll to pledge that he would refuse to obey illegal orders from the Trump administration, to which he responded he “would only follow lawful orders.”

“While I remain dissatisfied by Mr. Driscoll’s utter lack of qualifications to lead an organization as big and complex as the Army, I hope, for the sake of our Soldiers, that his improved preparation for this hearing is a sign that he takes seriously the incredible responsibility inherent in being Secretary of the Army,” Duckworth said in a press release after the exchange. “We ask our troops to operate at the highest possible level and it would be an insult to our brave Soldiers to confirm someone who does not meet that same standard to lead them.”

Duckworth voted against confirming Driscoll for his current position. She also voted against confirming Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and has even called for Hegseth to resign.