So if its the “president’s pleasure” that a soldier kill American citizens, the soldier should obey and do his duty?
Note that he said “Although a subordinate can challenge the legality of an order...”
Although my guess is you don’t really care about the law here, you just want to argue.
All commissioned officers, LDOs and warrant officers in the US armed forces, serve at the pleasure of the President. Exactly like civilians who serve in specific billets inside the executive branch of government.
All uniformed personnel can, and in fact have a sworn obligation, to question unlawful orders. What you've describe, would clearly be an unlawful order. Reporting for duty, deploying to a duty station and the like are not unlawful orders.
Uniformed service personal, however, are forbidden under the UCMJ to question command authority, there's a special word for it call "insubordination", and there a specific Article contained inside the UCMJ that addresses insubordination. What this officer is doing is clearly insubordination, as well as about 10 other violations of specific articles in the UCMJ, and that's just off the top of my head.
This is a mistake for this young officer. A career killer at least, and perhaps even something that will land him in the brig (or stockade more appropriately for him).
Of course not. He should cook up some bullshit 'conscientious objection' claim then run for a publicity-seeking California pseudo-attorney.
"at the pleasure of the President" just means the President can fire his a$$ any time he wants. Unless of course the President is a Republican, then All Hell Would Break Loose, if she should fire someone for violating "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".
Which brings up an interesting question, does "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", since it is a law and not just a military regulation, apply to the Commander in Chief? Ah well, even if it does, this Congress would not impeach and remove him if he "told" by committing an overt act on the South Lawn of the White House at high noon.