To My Brothers and Sisters In The Military

 

In 1945, before even most of your parents were born, the American military, along with those of the British, French, and Russian forces, put on trial the senior officers of the German military, for their role in following the tyrannical and despotic regime of Adolf Hitler, even into genocidal mania.

In every case, those commanders pled to that tribunal that they had no idea what all was being carried out by the Nazi high command, and that they were military soldiers, doing their jobs, and  "just following orders".

To a man, that defense was thrown out as completely insufficient, and wholly inexcusable, and as a result, they were given harsh prison terms, and some were executed by hanging, for crimes against humanity. Because they did, indeed, "just follow orders". 

The execrable letter above, from your duly appointed commanders, is nothing more nor less than them telling you to "just follow orders".

The best face to put on it is that it constitutes nothing less than deliberate and damnable treason, by those very officers entrusted with the leadership of you all, and protecting the safety of the nation.

The generals and admirals you all swore oaths to obey (I swore the identical oath, like you, and it had no expiration date) have abdicated their leadership role above you, and have, with lies of omission, committed you to the same path as the German generals and admirals did to their troops in 1933. Rest assured, both they and the nation will bear the cost of their leadership failure, here and hereafter.

There are serious questions and challenges about the presidential election of 2020. Criminal flaws and unconstitutional breaches of law led to massive irregularites, and make that entire election's alleged result entirely suspect, and the declared winner completely fraudulent.

You know about fraudulent enlistments. Some of you witnessed people in your basic training units or first duty stations suddenly whisked away, because it was determined by proper investigations that they had enlisted to serve fraudulently. That's how it works in the military, and how it's supposed to work in the nation at large. But the nation has been failed by those who should have known better. States certified elections, for partisan reasons, which even a blind man could see were falsified. Courts refused to so much as examine a single piece of evidence that would have proved such was so, beyond any reasonable doubt. The Congress followed suit and ratified those fraudulent certifications, and all levels of government intend to see to swearing in a commander in chief over you who has no more right to the office than does a banana.

We are not a banana republic. But your leadership wishes to behave as though we were.

Your leadership was therefore placed in the unenviable position of having to decide whether to exercise the judgement entrusted to their leadership positions. To a man, they have chosen to abdicate that trust, and command you to follow them down that dark road of feigning no knowledge of the realities above. Just follow orders.

Almost every one of you knows the Leadership Traits. Many of you, by heart, and you live and embody them every day, upon which the safety of the nation depends.

Your commanders have failed to show Integrity, failed to exercise Intelligence, completely abandoned Courage, used criminally poor Judgement, completely abandoned Justice, and acted entirely out of Selfishness, in ordering you, in no certain terms, to jump off the cliff with them and for them, lest they risk their own positions of confidence and trust. They have sold you and your loyalty down the river to protect nothing but their own pensions and positions of authority.

If they had possessed the slightest inkling of duty or honor to their country, they would have resigned and turned in their stars, rather than order you all to do what they should not and could not do. They are faithless and worthless for failing to do so.

They have, by these breaches, made an unsound and untimely decision, set a horribly bad example to their troops, utterly misinformed you, and have abandoned any pretense of looking out for your welfare, or that of the nation they are charged to serve. Those are leadership failures of the worst kind.

America has many enemies. As always, most of them are foreign, and we beg you and pray you to continue to serve us all, to protect this great nation from them. But now we also have domestic enemies. Your chain of command has chosen to ally with them, and certify the presidency of a banana.

In terms you cannot misunderstand, 

That is an unlawful order. It carries no weight, commands no obedience, and following it will not protect you from any consequences, nor the wrath of a justifiably enraged public.

Rest assured, there is ALWAYS a Day Of Reckoning for nations who follow the path you've been ordered to take. The consequences will be dire and eternal.

Disobedience to your chain of command, justified or not, is a fearful thing, whether one is a private or a general officer. Anyone who does so will face harsh discipline, by a system with swift and draconian punishments for those it deems guilty.

And yet, your leaders, by abandoning their duty in this matter, have now forced every man and woman under their command to have to weigh and consider every order they are given, from here on out, and decide which orders are lawful, in furtherance of the oaths you and they took, and which ones may be or are unlawful, and command you to undertake things as horribly wrong and vile as anything perpetrated by soldiers serving the Nazi regime.

Your command, by failing to acknowledge reality, has lied to you, and is trying to lie you into obedience to an entirely unlawful and illegitimate command, and left you in the difficult position of deciding when and whether to obey, and when and whether to disobey, any further orders.

You alone will bear the consequences of your moral choices. And any immoral choices, should you make them.

I thank Fate and a merciful God that in two separate terms of enlistment, I never served under such circumstances, but I pray for you the wisdom to know your duty, with every order you are given. And I pray that should you find yourself at the fork in the road between serving honorably, and "just following orders", you will find it in yourselves to be honest, intelligent, courageous, just, and unselfish, and do the right thing, as you have done every day since you enlisted or were commissioned, and undertook the heavy burden of your oaths of service.

It is supremely unfair and wrong that your commanders have laid such a heavy burden on every serving person's shoulders, but such is the situation in which you now find yourselves. I would be derelict in the oath I took were I to fail to inform you that this is so.

Choose Honor.

Do what is right, always, even at the risk of disobedience. You must do no less.

We, the People, do not ask this of you. 

The oaths you took DEMAND it, and your consciences compel it.

The fate of the nation hangs on your every decision, both in the here and now, and in the hereafter.

- Aesop, USMC

Once A Marine, Always A Marine