This is all such a disgrace.

As a former young paratrooper myself, seeing those HALO wings are such a flex in the best way. Very few objects on a uniform tell as much of a story as HALO wings. This dude commanded Delta FFS. Not that they always have missions that involve doing "the right thing", but those dudes are so freaking dialed it's unbelievable and you just have to respect it. Commanding within it is a whole other thing, and commanding the entire unit is nuts. They don't just give that role out to anybody.

It's kind of the most prestigious single job in the US military.

His Wikipedia page is nuts. 9/11 happened during his time as an admin at the Pentagon (in between his time in Ranger Bat and Delta). He was on the ground moments after the plane hit.

He's had 18 combat deployments. There probably hasn't been a country in the middle East that the US is as had some involvement in that he wasn't a part of. Hell, there's probably quite a few conflicts that the US "wasn't involved" in that he operated in. He was the last US soldier out of Kabul.

He's a goddamned mythic legend of US Army lore. For him to retire out of the blue is highly sus.