[Porkchop]

***Our military will obey the orders of their superior officers. Those orders will be enforced from the top general down to the lowest enlisted man. Your typical 19-year-old PFC doesn’t know anything about the Constitution. When he is ordered to fire on “insurgents,” he will fire. It doesn’t matter whether that military man is from a blue state or a red state.

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I respectfully disagree. When I attended Basic Training in the far distant past, and later the Officer’s Basic (and Advanced Course), it was constantly drummed into us that you were expected (and required) to disobey unlawful orders (i.e. “Take out the village”).

The “I was just following orders” defense didn’t work in the past, and won’t work in the future.

Somehow the thought of American troops firing on their fellow Americans is especially abhorrent to me.

I would hope that the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, Coast Guard, and Space Force Guardians have enough of a sense of Duty, and a remembrance of their Oath of Service to DEFEND the Constitution and not destroy it.

🐷

[Publius]

Before My Lai, we in ROTC were educated that we had to obey all orders. It was not our province to question those orders. Once we executed those orders, we could file a protest, but if we did not execute those orders, then we had no legal grounds to protest, and we were in a state of mutiny.

After My Lai, the JAG officers made the rounds and used weasel words to educate us that we did not have to execute illegal orders. As to what exactly was "illegal" was left to our imagination. We left those briefings more confused than when we came in.