In an open letter released on 30 August 2021, retired US generals and admirals call for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, for their responsibility in the fall of Kabul.

Their group, called Flag Officers 4 America, had already published an open letter at the time of President Biden’s election, questioning his sanity.

This anecdote highlights once again the opposition among many high-ranking officers to the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski "war without end" doctrine. The signatories lament that the United States is no longer an empire in the Roman sense of the term and has relinquished its honor.