WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has nominated a new Vice Chief of Staff of the Army to replace Gen. James Mingus, who has served in the position since January of 2024.
According to the nomination posting, Trump nominated Lt. Gen. Christopher LaNeve for the position on Monday. LaNeve currently serves as an advisor to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in his official capacity as the Senior Military Assistant to the Secretary of Defense.
Mingus has been the Vice Chief for less than two years, but an Army source told Breaking Defense that Mingus “always intended” for this to be “his last job,” adding that “it is a little early but not significant.”
A spokesperson from Mingus’ office did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Army public affairs or the Pentagon.
In a brief statement to Breaking Defense, Maj. Peter Sulzona, a spokesman for Mingus, said the service does not comment on pending nominations.
“Gen Mingus will continue to execute the duties & responsibilities of his position, focusing on warfighting and the wellbeing of soldiers,” Sulzona added.
Before taking his post at the beginning of last year, Mingus served as the J3, director for operations, and the Director of the Joint Staff in the Pentagon starting in 2020 under then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley. Prior to that, Mingus had stints serving as the deputy commander of the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson and commanding the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
During his time as vice serving under Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, Mingus helped oversee the Army Transformation Initiative, which has cut programs and rearranged funding in line with the service’s new priorities. Namely, the ATI has posed to put big ticket aviation programs on the chopping block, like the Gray Eagle drone, AH-64D Apaches, the Future Tactical Uncrewed Aircraft System competition and more. Mingus told the Army aviation community earlier this year that cuts “hurt,” but waiting to modernize is not an option, as Breaking Defense previously reported.
Mingus has also overseen the service’s sprawling Next Generation Command and Control — the service’s number one modernization priority that is meant to provide commanders and units a new approach to manage information, data, and command and control with agile and software-based architectures.
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Meanwhile LaNeve, prior to advising Hegseth, served as the Commanding General of the Eighth Army in the Republic of Korea. Before that, he served as the Special Assistant to the Commanding General of Army Forces Command and the Commanding General of the 82nd Airborne Division.
It is not known currently when LaNeve’s nomination hearing will take place.
This article was updated on 10/21/2025 at 3:35pm Eastern with a comment from a spokesperson for Gen. James Mingus.