Austin retired from the Army in 2016 only to be asked to return to the Pentagon by President Joe Biden in 2021, making history as the nation's first Black defense secretary.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin bid farewell Friday to the forces and personnel he has led through a tumultuous term that had three major military crises, a global pandemic and a personal brush with cancer that became a flashpoint for the way it was mishandled.

Defense Secretary Austin will bid farewell Friday following a term that included three major military crises, a global pandemic and a brush with cancer.

The Pentagon Inspector General released a scathing report about Defense Secretary Austin’s failure to quickly disclose his hospitalization in early 2024.

The secrecy surrounding Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s hospitalizations in late 2023 and early 2024 “increased unnecessarily” the risks to US national security, the Pentagon’s inspector general concluded in a report released on Wednesday.