We need our military leaders to show their moral courage

I recall a discussion held in a military ethics class during my time as a midshipman in the Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) at Boston University. The conversation was about an instance from World War II in which members of the French Resistance killed a group of Nazi prisoners in retaliation for summary executions of their comrades captured by the Germans. The upshot of this case-study was that the retaliation seemed to end the practice of killing resistance prisoners by the Wehrmacht, at least for a time.

As officers in training, we were asked to consider whether this violation of the rules of war by French partisans was justified given the outcome. I remember the initial consensus from my classmates — me included — was yes. WWII was an extraordinary time and fascism a singularly evil ideology that was threatening to spread across the free world. If not then then what other time in human history would such measures be acceptable?

Our instructor was an experienced surface warfare officer with a master’s degree in history. Knowing I was an international relations major, he called on me and asked how the French went on to comport themselves during Algeria’s war for independence a decade later. In Algeria, the French military committed myriad crimes against prisoners of war and civilians. His point was obvious: when lines are crossed without accountability, it creates a culture that all but guarantees those lines will be crossed again.

We rightly marvel at the physical courage displayed by so many members of our military. As a former paper-pushing public affairs officer supporting the coalition’s counter-IED task force in Afghanistan, I was in awe of the explosive ordinance disposal personnel I worked with who risked their lives clearing roadside bombs. Even for those outside of combat, landing an aircraft on the pitching deck of a ship or operating a nuclear reactor 1,000 feet below the surface of the ocean, much of what is routine in the military is inherently dangerous. Many soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are just one lapse of judgement or minor mistake away from catastrophe on a daily basis.

And yet in this second Trump administration I find myself thinking more about a different, in many ways, harder kind of courage we must expect from our men and women in uniform: moral courage.

When the Commander of U.S. Southern Command, Adm. Alvin Holsey, was forced into early retirement by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for raising concerns about the legality of the U.S. strikes on purported “drug boats” in the Caribbean and Southern Pacific, he was surrendering an illustrative career on principle. In another time (say, one year ago) the military’s mechanisms for accountability and adherence to the laws of armed conflict would have protected any servicemember who raised such concerns, to say nothing of a flag officer with a regional command. But the Trump administration has systematically annihilated these systems, removing administrative roadblocks and personnel that might call for accountability to the law when it comes to use of military force.

I find myself thinking more about a different, in many ways, harder kind of courage we must expect from our men and women in uniform: moral courage.

That this administration would commit and defend potential war crimes should be a surprise to no one. In his first term, Trump was a vigorous defender of Eddie Gallagher, the navy SEAL accused by members of his own team of murdering an Iraqi prisoner, pardoning him and allowing him to retire as a SEAL, preempting a decision from the Navy special warfare community itself which was considering the case. Given how events have accelerated since the beginning of this year, this pattern should be especially chilling.

In the past two weeks, the administration has unilaterally decapitated the Venezuelan government to gain access to that country’s oil and ratcheted up saber rattling against NATO ally Denmark — whose military fought and died with us in Iraq and Afghanistan — over President Trump’s desire to own Greenland. It is a reckless foreign policy grounded in the acquisitive whims of a would-be authoritarian residing outside of reality with no regard for our nation’s long-term security and little concern for the safety of American service members.

Despite this chaos abroad, it is domestic developments that I find more worrying with respect to our military.

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) reflexive defense of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Officer Jonathan Ross after he killed Renee Macklin Good on-camera has made it perfectly clear that the administration has the same contempt for the lives of American citizens as it does for enemy combatants. Had Ross been an 18-year-old Marine infantryman and Good been an Afghan civilian, he would have, at minimum, been the subject of a courts martial inquiry. Since he is a masked immigration agent with two decades of experience and she was a citizen who may have held negative views of the administration’s immigration policy,  he will apparently not even be subject to a federal investigation. The FBI refused to share evidence with Minnesota’s investigations agency.

This bloody theater has a purpose. For months, Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act. It’s hardly beyond the pale to believe the administration wants to stoke a violent backlash as a pretext to send in active-duty military. Thus far, the protesters in Minneapolis have comported themselves with admirable restraint given the casualness with which these agents are repeatedly violating their First and Fourth amendment rights. Given the relentlessness of ICE’s outrageous behavior, it is only a matter of time until a protest becomes disorderly or — in a country with more privately owned firearms than people — worse.

Indeed, reporting suggests the administration may not even wait for such a provocation to cross this particular Rubicon. It seems it’s only a matter of time before U.S. soldiers are deployed against the American people. When that moment comes, I wonder what kind of moral courage will we see from uniformed leadership?

Will more flag officers follow the example of Adm. Holsey? Will generals resign to send a message through the ranks that this is not acceptable? Or will they guard their careers and leave it to the grunts straight out of boot camp with car payments and contracts requiring years of service to decide whether to follow an order to shoot protesters in our streets?

America today requires a different kind of courage from its military leaders: the courage to follow the law and uphold their oaths to the Constitution.

I do not pretend these decisions are easy. I am sure that many high-ranking officers are choosing to stay out of fear of who they might be replaced with, out of a belief that they can be a restraining force. But this administration has shown it will not be restrained and the only honorable course for military leadership when the orders come down to break oaths to the U.S. Constitution is a public repudiation of the Trump administration’s aims.

Back in the spring, I met up with a friend who is still serving. He had sat with me in that same military ethics class in which we discussed the case of the French Resistance executions. The instructor for that course is also still in the Navy and we joked that he would be among those who would be shot against a wall for refusing to participate when Trump attempts to launch a military coup. Such an extreme scenario still resides, for now, in the realm of dark humor, but the point stands.

America today requires a different kind of courage from its military leaders: the courage to follow the law and uphold their oaths to the Constitution. The republic is in peril. If they prove unequal to the moment, we will lose it.