As a former O-1, O-2, and O-3, I disagree with your assessment. It is drilled into junior officers’ heads to consider whether an order is illegal. An order to depose the sitting President that does not come down from the appropriate civilian authority would be highly suspect, IMO.
Thanks for your service.
My point is that no O-1, 2, or 3 would EVER get an order “depose the President”. Obviously, anyone who issued such an order would be arrested in short order.
If you look at the history of military coups, successful and otherwise, the junior officer corps never gets a clear picture of what is happening. They get field orders appropriate to their rank and responsibility to carry out operations of limited scope.
Only the coup plotters have the whole picture, and if they are to succeed, one thing they MUST do is conceal the true nature of what is happening from those with the means to stop them until it’s too late.
Look, I’m not saying a military coup is going to happen. I do not believe it is likely. I do believe it is possible, given the extent of open treason among elected officials of both parties and the extensive infiltration of the upper ranks with officers acceptable to Team Obama.
You were an O-3. Suppose you were awakened at 0300 by your battalion commander and told that a major terrorist attack on the White House was in progress, that the President and VP were missing, that the Speaker of the House had assumed authority as Acting President and that your company was to deploy to defend the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and M Street, because enemy forces dressed as US soldiers were crossing Key Bridge.
The internet is down, and TV and radio are off the air.
Would you deploy, or would you immediately, with your only contact your battalion commander who gave you the order, denounce it as an illegal order and refuse to obey?