The Pentagon has fired the person responsible for monitoring the editorial independence of its own military publication, Stars and Stripes . “Apparently the Pentagon also doesn’t want you to hear from me anymore about threats to the editorial independence of Stars and Stripes . They fired me,” Jacqueline Smith, the paper’s ombudsman, wrote Thursday in an op-ed. In her final column, titled “The Pentagon is trying to silence me,” Smith said that she had received notice on Thursday that her last day in the role would be April 28, due to a mandatory five-day notice period. No reason had been given for her sudden departure, she said, though Pentagon officials had told her, “This action is not grievable.” “No one should be surprised that they’re kicking out the one person charged by Congress with protecting Stars and Stripes’ editorial independence,” Smith wrote.…