Still waiting on your answers to my questions. Here's another: if you were in a position where Trump ordered you to shoot nukes in a first strike against China for no reason other than to start a war and stay in power, would you do it or disobey a direct order? Let's see if you're a hypocrite complaining about watching hypocrites. Can't wait.
Thanks for sticking with me through this week, gang. It has been a busy few days, but I appreciate your interest… and persistence.
I did consider typing out an elaborate boilerplate response to your questions, which would have ultimately proven unsatisfying to you… no doubt, prompting Slick to remind us, once again, that
that is why JOs are leaving in droves.
I posted the link to Dr. Kaurin’s book as an opportunity for you to explore some of the themes in this thread in an introspective, intellectual manner. I really do hope that you take the opportunity to read it. To be blunt, some of your postings in this thread, and others, have been disturbing to me, and it has become increasingly clear that you may not have a complete understanding of the relationship between your duty to obey a lawful order and the decision to resign in protest.
One’s experience in the military is not, as you have previously implied, a series of decision points where you evaluate your willingness to comply with orders, or resign in protest. Imagine a wartime scenario where a Marine is ordered to charge an enemy position, and that Marine raises his hand and tells his CO that he has decided to resign and won’t follow orders. It’s so absurd a proposition that we might want to dismiss it, but there are examples in our history of summary executions for failure to follow orders on the battlefield. Resignation in the face of an unpleasant order is simply not an option, and it must be met with the most severe consequence, else a complete breakdown in order and discipline will ensue.
On the other end of this spectrum is the scenario where a (usually) senior individual chooses to resign in protest – nearly always as a result of philosophical or policy differences with Executive Branch civilian leadership. Jim Mattis’ 2018 resignation comes to mind, as does the Revolt of the Admirals in 1949. In contrast, if a senior officer were given a direct and lawful order to perform an action, and that officer had a personal or philosophical objection to following that order, they do not have the option of simply resigning to avoid the consequences of their refusal. They have a duty to obey, or face the consequences of committing a criminal act under the UCMJ. LtCol Scheller is just now coming to grips with that reality, after loudly proclaiming his resignation. Likewise, per the recent NAVADMIN, senior Navy leaders who fail to follow the lawful order to be vaccinated do not get the opportunity to resign in protest to avoid consequences. They get the same bad paper and discharge like everybody else.
I’ll wrap this up with the softball you’ve tee’d up for me… Trump orders a nuclear strike. It’s interesting that you chose that scenario as a rebuttal of your position. There was actually a good discussion of this exact situation recently by Dr. Tom Nichols (also of the USNWC), who is a Sovietologist and nuclear arms policy expert. The conventional wisdom is that the kind of order you’ve suggested - launching an unprovoked, preemptive nuclear attack on China as a means of illegally retaining power after a failed reelection bid, would be an unlawful order, which the National Command Authority would not be obligated to follow. In fact, this is precisely the basis for CJCS Milley’s huddle with his NMCC staff during the events of January 6th.
So, I hope this puts everything into context vis-à-vis the lawful order for military personnel to be vaccinated, and our legal obligations as military members. It's worth noting that I edited this post down from a 1500 word version because nobody wants to read a dissertation on their phone. We’ve obviously just scratched the surface on this topic, and I look forward to the discussion.