I have heard from some anti-Trump officers that it is acceptable for them to challenge Trump and be “disloyal” to him on political matters because while the enlisted oath of office includes the phrase “that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States,” no such words regarding the president appear in the officer oath of office. This idea is highly disturbing.
It suggests that officers are not bound to follow the lawful orders of the president if they disagree politically. Not only is this contrary to the sacred officer tradition of being apolitical, but it is also contrary to the part of the officers’ oath that requires officers to “support and defend the Constitution” (after all, the president’s military role arises in the Constitution). Finally, it is contrary to the actual commission of all U.S. military officers, which states in part: “And this officer is to observe and follow such orders and directions from time to time as may be given by the President of the United States of America.”
The trends we are seeing feel dangerously close to an embrace of 1970s South American-style military juntas. Think about Gen. Mark Milley telling China he would warn them about U.S. military activity. Think about Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman using his position on the National Security Council as a springboard for impeaching a president because he did not like the way that president was lawfully discharging his duties. These are not the marks of healthy civilian control of the military. They are instead marks of a military approaching the rationalization of a coup.
I have heard numerous theories as to how we got here, ranging from “Obama purged all the good generals” to “Gen Z are too narcissistic for selfless sacrifice,” but I attribute the breakdown quite directly to DEI policies and practices. I do not mean that the advancement of officers for DEI reasons is the cause. Rather, the inculcation of DEI policies as a core ethos of military service has been monstrously destructive. Our military has always been driven by core values, such as, “Don’t give up the ship,” “Duty, Honor, Country,” and “Always Faithful.” Traditionally, those values have been apolitical and solely revolved around the military’s fundamental mission of defeating America’s battlefield enemies.
As Kurt Schlichter wrote yesterday, The Pentagon Must Go on the Offensive to Defeat Politicized Officers. “If you aren’t loyal to the commander-in-chief, who are you loyal to? Your own personal conception of right and wrong? Well, Soldier, you are in the wrong career field. There are a wide range of jobs you can do where you can freely share your thoughts about our political leadership and its policies, but being a military leader is not one of them.”