“How can you kill people under orders when you think the order has no legal or moral authority?”
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That’s a good question. But I don’t want to find out when I’m under enemy fire that the soldier standing by my side is not going to shoot back because he believes the President to be ineligible. Neither do I want to learn that, if I am wounded, I will be treated by a less experienced doctor who arrived on short notice because the doctor who was scheduled to deploy had refused to show up at the last minute.
Anyone who doesn’t want to serve under the Commander-in-Chief is free to resign. Those who remain in uniform have an obligation to their buddies to fight by their side and heal their wounds, regardless of their personal beliefs.
The Uniform Code of Military Justice is very clear on this point when it states (Article 90) that “the dictates of a person’s conscience, religion, or personal philosophy cannot justify or excuse the disobedience of an otherwise lawful order.”
Even Lakin’s first attorney knew better than to claim that an order to report to one’s commanding officer’s office or to board a plane was anything but an “otherwise lawful order.” (If you’re curious, the preceding paragraphs of Art. 90, which you can find at http://usmilitary.about.com/od/punitivearticles/a/mcm90.htm, explain in detail what that means.)
From the military justice point of view, this was an open-and-shut case.
I agree officers should have resigned en masse