Commander of US Space Base in Greenland Is Removed Following Vance Visit

Col. Susan Meyers had hosted Vice President JD Vance at the Pituffik Space Base in Greenland on March 28.

U.S. Space Force Col. Susan Meyers, 821st Space Base Group commander, left, greets Vice President JD Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance at Pituffik Space Base, Greenland, March 28, 2025. Vance was the first vice president to visit the remote base, where he received an in-depth brief of the missions and importance to national defense. U.S. Space Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jaime Sanchez

The Pentagon has relieved the commander of a U.S. Space Force base in Greenland just two weeks after she hosted Vice President JD Vance for a visit.

In an April 10 statement, Space Force Delta 1 announced Col. Susan Meyers was relieved of her command at the Pituffik Space Base in Greenland earlier that day. The statement indicates that Col. Kenneth Klock, who leads the Space Force Delta 1, ordered Meyers’s removal “for loss of confidence in her ability to lead.”

“Commanders are expected to adhere to the highest standards of conduct, especially as it relates to remaining nonpartisan in the performance of their duties,” the statement reads.

The Space Force statement offered no additional details about what infractions may have led to Meyers’s removal.

The Trump administration has shown renewed interest in Greenland in recent months, with President Donald Trump at times expressing an interest in the United States asserting control over the island, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark.

Meyers welcomed Vance to the Pituffik Space Base on March 28 and provided him with a briefing as to the operations and strategic value of the installation.

Giving a speech during his visit, the vice president said Denmark hasn’t devoted enough resources to Greenland to counter growing Russian and Chinese interests in the Arctic region.

“I think that you'd be a lot better coming under the United States security umbrella than you have been under Denmark’s security umbrella,” Vance said in a remark directed at the people of Greenland.

“What Denmark’s security umbrella has meant is, effectively, they’ve passed it all off to brave Americans and hoped that we would pick up the tab.”

Military.com first reported that shortly after Vance’s Greenland visit, Meyers disseminated an email across the Pituffik Space Base community, appearing to disavow some of the views Vance had expressed.

“I do not presume to understand current politics, but what I do know is the concerns of the U.S. administration discussed by Vice President Vance on Friday are not reflective of Pituffik Space Base,” Meyers wrote in an email obtained by Military.com.

A Space Force spokesperson confirmed to The Epoch Times that Meyers was removed over this emailed communication, which she sent to American, Danish, Greenlandic, and Canadian personnel located on the base.

Pentagon press secretary Sean Parnell referenced both the Space Force statement and the Military.com article in a Thursday post on social media platform X, addressing the decision to remove Meyers from her command.

“Actions to undermine the chain of command or to subvert President Trump’s agenda will not be tolerated at the Department of Defense,” Parnell wrote.

The Space Force has named Col. Shawn Lee to take over command at the Pituffik Space Base following Meyers’s removal.

The Space Force base hosts a solid-state phased-array radar that supports missile warning, missile defense, and space surveillance operations.