Still not getting it.
The first thing you learn at the academy is that YOU are responsible for the orders you follow. If you get an order to shift budget funds from one account to another without legal authorization to do so, and you follow that order, you are going to Leavenworth, KS with your CO.
No guns, no battle, no eminent danger - you got the order from your CO to shift the funds, you did it without questioning it, you both got caught, and you both go to jail. It is literally that simple. It doesn’t depend on the circumstances.
Crimson Tide is a great movie BECAUSE of your more emotional approach to this. Hackman’s character was right - they should have launched their nukes without question. Washington’s character was legally wrong. He should also have backed Hackman’s play. He didn’t.
What’s the right call on board that sub? Hackman keeps the missiles in the tubes, puts the XO in the brig, and hopes he made the right call, and that there is a Pentagon left to sort this out. He can’t relieve the XO and fire the missiles for questioning the order. He can fire the XO for disobeying a direct order, but he can’t launch the nukes either.
When Hackman relieved the XO, he did so illegally, and all orders regarding launch of nukes became ILLEGAL. Anybody following those orders are committing a war crime. Each officer has to make the call on the legality of issued orders. I’m not a fan, because your actions in the field get Monday-morning quarterbacked in air-conditioned offices.
That’s the bed the 60’s made for the military. They may as well lie in it for a spell.
You used a movie as a legal reference? lol.
Officers are responsible to follows orders and only question them within the confines of their authority. The Major does not KNOW that Obama is not the rightful President, so he has nothing to go on to say he will not follow his orders. He does not know anything about the situation, so until he does, he must act as though Obama has been properly vetted.
Once again, that Major is following all kinds of orders from Obama, he just doesn’t want to follow the one that sends him overseas away from his civilian life.