Col. Sheyla Baez Ramirez was suspended as garrison commander of Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, on April 18, according to a statement from the U.S. Army Reserve.
“This suspension is not related to any misconduct,” Monday’s statement reads. “The Army Reserve has no further details to provide.”
Fort McCoy has an identical statement posted on its website.
Baez Ramirez was suspended less than a week after the Defense Department said it would investigate photographs shared on social media that purportedly showed a leadership board at Fort McCoy that conspicuously did not have pictures of President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. A chorus of unsourced social media accounts claimed the board’s missing photos were intentional under Baez Ramirez.
But Army officials did not connect the missing photos to Baez Ramirez’s removal, and such boards are ubiquitous on all military installations. They present a visual key to a unit’s or ship’s chain of command, from the president’s role as commander-in-chief down to the ranking officials in the building or unit where the board is hung. A large base might have dozens or more similar displays throughout its buildings.
However, in an earlier statement, Army Reserve officials appeared to confirm that Baez Ramirez had no role in the missing pictures and had taken steps to restore them.
“The Fort McCoy leadership team and the Army Reserve were unaware of the vandalism of the leadership board at a building at Fort McCoy, WI,” the Army Reserve posted in an April 14 X post. “Once it was brought to their attention, the leadership at Fort McCoy took immediate action to correct it.”
The Army Reserve also confirmed in an X post that an investigation had been launched to determine “the facts and circumstances surrounding this incident.”
When asked to clarify what it meant by the word “vandalism,” and if the public statement implied that Baez Ramirez ordered the pictures taken down from the leadership board or was aware they had been removed, an Army Reserve spokesperson reiterated that no further information is available at this time.
Task & Purpose was unable to reach Baez Ramirez on Monday. News of her suspension was first reported by WKBT News 8 in Wisconsin.
An official account run by the Secretary of Defense’s office addressed the missing photos but offered no details on the incident.
“Regarding the Ft. McCoy Chain of Command wall controversy…. WE FIXED IT! Also, an investigation has begun to figure out exactly what happened,” wrote the Defense Department’s “Rapid Response” X account on April 14 with a photo of the leadership board with missing pictures visible.
Baez Ramirez’s suspension from command is the second time this month that a senior commander’s removal has allegedly been connected to an incomplete command board, only for officials to later downplay such speculation. Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield was fired by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in early April as U.S. representative to the NATO Military Committee.
Rumors and unconfirmed photographs of incomplete command boards under her purview almost immediately circulated on social media, but a U.S. official told Task & Purpose that Chatfield’s relief was not related to the photographs.
“The photo rumor is not true,” the official said. “The president’s photo is hanging as it is supposed to at NATO headquarters.”
Fort McCoy, located in Monroe County, Wisconsin, serves as a home for thousands of active-duty, reserve and Army National Guard soldiers. Units regularly go to the fort for large-scale exercises and for cold weather training.
Baez Ramirez became Fort McCoy’s garrison commander on July 19, according to her official Army biography. She was commissioned as a military intelligence officer in 1999 through a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program, and she went on to deploy to Bosnia-Herzegovina in support of Operation Joint Forge.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology/mental health from the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey along with a master’s degree in strategic studies from the Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Prior to arriving at Fort McCoy, Baez Ramirez served as chief, reserve program, United States Army Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Her other previous assignments include serving as chief of operations for U.S. Army Reserve Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina; strategic planner for the chief of the Army Reserve/U.S. Army Reserve Command commanding general at Fort Bragg; and deputy commander of the 501st Military Intelligence Brigade (Theater) and the deputy chief of the Special United States Liaison Advisor Korea at Camp Humphreys, South Korea.