U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has been hospitalized since Monday for an unspecified medical matter, the Pentagon said late on Friday, without detailing why he was being treated or why it kept his hospital stay secret all week, Reuters reported.
Austin, who is 70, sits just below President Joe Biden at the top of the chain of command of the U.S. military and his duties require him being available at a moment's notice to respond to any manner of national security crisis.
The Pentagon did not say whether Austin ever lost consciousness before or after he was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Jan. 1, or the extent to which his duties were assumed by his deputy, Kathleen Hicks.
Those duties include being ready and available to respond to an incoming nuclear attack.
The Pentagon said Austin suffered "complications following a recent elective medical procedure," but declined to say what that procedure was or what complications he suffered.
He is recovering well and is expecting to resume his full duties today," Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder, the top Pentagon spokesperson, said in a statement on Friday.
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