Army big axed for racy texts

A HIGH-RANKING Army general from New Jersey has been fired from his post after sending racy text messages to an enlisted soldier’s wife, calling her a “hottie.”

Maj. Gen. Joseph Harrington, a twostar general who was in charge of the U.S. Army Africa, was relieved of his command and recalled to Washington, the Army said Friday.

Army Col. Patrick Seiber, an Army spokesman, said Harrington remains under investigation for sending inappropriate Facebook messages to the woman, who is married to a soldier from the same base in Vincenza, Italy.

Harrington (pictured), who is also married, was suspended from his post Sept. 1, but had stayed in Italy.

The pair exchanged friendly messages after meeting at a gym on base, the woman told USA Today last month.

But Harrington, a native of Cresskill, N.J., soon began sending flirty and suggestive messages.

“U can be my nurse,” Harrington wrote to the woman in one text.

“I’d enjoy being in a tent with U,” he wrote in another.

She became concerned when the married general started telling her she was “looking good for sure.”

“You seem to have a great modeling reume! Truly! Though I hadn’t noticed! Where is your hubby tonight? Work?”

In another exchange, the woman mentioned that she had a fight with her husband, to which Harrington responded, “I’m sorry! Make up sex is fun.”

Harrington, possibly fearing that he could be in trouble, also urged the woman to delete the messages. “I would say they clearly violated Article 133 — conduct unbecoming an officer,” Don Christensen, the president of Protect Our Defenders, an advocate group for military sexual-assault victims, told Stars and Stripes last month.

“There’s no way in hell this guy should be texting some junior enlisted’s wife in the middle of the night, and he knew it,” Christensen said.