Maybe it has to happen every year or two. At least in wartime. Some sailor, soldier or Marine decides to challenge the president of the United States, publicly, on some issue or other, and has to be disciplined. From time to time it may even be a general. (See MacArthur, Douglas.)
Last time this came up — was it 2010? — it was a lieutenant colonel, and a doctor to boot, who declined to deploy to Afghanistan. The now decidedly former Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin theorized in his wisdom — clearly his degree was in medicine, not political science or military law — that the commander-in-chief’s birth certificate wasn’t valid, so neither was his presidency. So he wouldn’t follow a direct order.
OK. The colonel was deployed to prison instead. Fair enough, legal enough, necessary enough.
Generals and colonels have to follow orders, too, just as they expect their orders to be followed by majors and sergeants. The country can’t have its military deciding, from trooper to trooper, whether to follow orders and deploy when those orders are cut. No matter what a grunt might think about war, any war, a member of the armed services is expected, should be expected, to have one response when called on by the president of the United States to take his post: Yes, sir.
When our all-volunteer force puts on the uniform, each trooper knows the drill, and the deal: You lose some rights. You don’t have the First Amendment right to speak your mind when standing at attention in formation. You don’t have the right to avoid Unreasonable Searches and Seizures when your drill sergeant starts emptying your sock drawer and throwing the contents across the room. And if the MREs they give you in the field don’t violate the Eighth Amendment’s guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment, what does? There’s no appeal in this man’s army. A soldier is a soldier. A Marine is a Marine. Twenty-four-seven. Just as a doctor is always a doctor. Or a judge a judge, on the bench or off. Some of us are always on duty. And are expected to act like it.