Obey Orders or Vote With Your Feet

Careerist officers in the military are not open to questions or suggestions as to how they preserve their retirement checks and follow-on defense industry jobs.

"The U.S. military must remain apolitical at all times," wrote Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He noted that "part of the deal we made when we joined up was to willingly subordinate our individual interests to the greater good of protecting vital national interests."

What to do in a Vietnam or Iraq where it is clear you are ordered to participate in an immoral and illegal act that is clearly not in the national interest?

Military personnel are obligated to give their unvarnished, even critical, advice to their civilian leaders, Mullen said.

"If it's followed, great," Mullen said. "If it's not, we only have two choices: obey the orders we have been given, carrying them out with the professionalism and loyalty they deserve, or vote with our feet."

It takes equal amounts of moral courage to make either choice. For a careerist officer staying in is the easy route and speaks to acting in individual interest. Serving the greater good requires placing morals above all else and acting on option two.

Great advice Admiral.

However, isn't the net effect of your "obey or walk" theory just the opposite of an apolitical military? Those who remain are more likely to be like-minded or agreeing personnel while those who are of the "other party" are called upon to separate themselves from the service.

Your advice leaves the Nation with a military that is in fact deeply partisan and is not open to ideas or diversity. It looks much like the military we have right now.

The test for the current military and all of it's self righteous leaders, apolitical by self description only, will come when there is a change in party leadership and the tide for decision making has turned.

Where will senior leaders come from in the years after the likes of Mullen called on all the young talent to vote with their feet because they didn't agree with the civilians in charge? Will the type of leaders who feel "only republicans can lead the military" have the moral courage that Mullen is demanding of today's combat tested military to "obey or walk"?

With the likely hood that Obama will have the Presidency it is an obvious preemption on the part of the military-industrial complex to silence the combat veterans who have paid the price under the Bush administration and keep them from speaking out of the truths they know and stop their participation in regime change within their own country.

The net result of this type of approach to politics and service is a degraded military capability. Rather than assimilation the brass should be seeking and coveting the dissenters as a balance to the group think that got us to where we are today.