Caudle made 1-star under Obama and 4-star under Biden when he was appointed as USFFC. The NYT story conveniently leaves those details out because it's contrary to the narrative that the current CNO is a Trump croney.
Also, his flag career trajectory doesn't look abnormal for someone appointed to the office of CNO (and neither does ADM Franchetti's, which is why everyone is all like 'wtf?' regarding her relief). It's important to remember that the military recommended ADM Paparo for CNO, but Biden said no and appointed ADM Franchetti. If you're an administration vehemently against DEI, that's enough smoke to call fire. On a significantly less controversial note, ADM Franchetti's countdown to war with China on her desk was 180 out from this administration's national security strategy.
Anyway, this story reads like an Epstein conspiracy theory that implies people are guilty by association.
It's kinda hard to be a Republican lackey when you've spent your flag career bouncing between 4 administrations, roughly split evenly between Democrat and Republicans. Perhaps ADM Caudle had the foresight and vision to predict that Hegseth would beat a 50/50 Senate confirmation decided by the VP before it happened, but I'm inclined to think that people aren't that talented at seeing the future without overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Especially when backing the wrong guy is a high risk / low reward proposition.