A question for enlisted soldiers

I have noticed that there are a few members on ATS that are currently enlisted in the military. I am going to ask you some questions and I would like for you to put yourself in these situations as best you can. Tell me what you think you would do or how you would handle the situations.

If the United States were to become a police state and the government started to use military force against American citizens, to control and/or destroy anyone who didn't cooperate voluntarily , how would you react? Would you take up arms to arrest and/or kill fellow countrymen for rebelling against the government? What if you agreed with the rebels? Would you risk making your family and yourself an enemy of the state in order to stand by your convictions? Or would you follow orders to avoid endangering those you love? Do you think that it is OK for the government to use military force to stop a civilian uprising if you, personally, don't agree with their views?

I am putting this out there as a fictitious scenario, and I don't care if you THINK this could happen or not. I want to know how you would feel and react IF IT DID.

Its a shame you have had no takers on this topic so far. I guess the latest flying saucer sighting
is way more important than potential current and/or future events that could have
real impact on the way we live our lives. I was rather anticipating some interesting
takes on the question you asked. I hate to see this question die off, so I am
willing to send a few points your way, but I hesitate to re-direct your question
to an extensive past history. The situation you propose is not ficticious. And I
do not precisely meet your qualifier as a respondent.


/\/ight\/\/ing

Originally posted by jezebel
I have noticed that there are a few members on ATS that are currently enlisted in the military. I am going to ask you some questions and I would like for you to put yourself in these situations as best you can. Tell me what you think you would do or how you would handle the situations.

If the United States were to become a police state and the government started to use military force against American citizens, to control and/or destroy anyone who didn't cooperate voluntarily , how would you react? Would you take up arms to arrest and/or kill fellow countrymen for rebelling against the government? What if you agreed with the rebels? Would you risk making your family and yourself an enemy of the state in order to stand by your convictions? Or would you follow orders to avoid endangering those you love? Do you think that it is OK for the government to use military force to stop a civilian uprising if you, personally, don't agree with their views?

I am putting this out there as a fictitious scenario, and I don't care if you THINK this could happen or not. I want to know how you would feel and react IF IT DID.

Well, when I took the oath of enlistment, it stated that I was to protect the united states against all enemies foreign AND domestic.

when i swore allegience to the crown it was for protection against enemies of the kingdom...domestic and foreign.

TBH...i think that we have more problems domestically than foriegn at the moment.

My family dont care but they well know what to do if they are attacked or that.

I do my duty and serve....i am proud to be able to.

Gryff

Originally posted by Jeffrey
IWell, when I took the oath of enlistment, it stated that I was to protect the united states against all enemies foreign AND domestic.

Well Jeffery, if you are a member of the Armed Forces, do you not remeber that part of the oath was to defend the Constitution?

"I,_________,do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God. I swear (or affirm) that I am fully aware and fully understand the conditions under which I am enlisting."

The Commisioned Office Oath is similar. Notice that defending the Constitution is first. This implies the order of obediance. If an officer appointed above you gives and unconstitutional order you don't have to obey it.

The argument or the rub here is who decides what is contitutional. There was an Army Spec. (New was his name I think) that refused to wear the UN beret and was court martialed. I don't know the outcome.

BTW it is a bit spooky that the original question is similar to what I was asked when entering the Special Forces. Something like this. "What is the last thing you would feel if you were ordered to fire on US citizen that where mounting an armed rebellion in the US?"

Answer: The recoil of my weapon.


Since I am not in any more, I am not sure if I could answer fairly. I would fight today. You think Iraq is causing problems? I would hate to do it, but many more bodies a day would be produced.

One thing besides fight though, I can train many others to fight, and multiply what I can do by exponetial numbers.

against the populace of it's own country. Just ask the King of France.

I read somewhere that in order to remove the risk of Military Personnel refusing to fire on the people of their own hometowns, they were to be stationed some way away from where they lived. That way they would be able to perform their duties without fear for their own families. I have no idea how true this is, but it does seem feasible.

Originally posted by Publius
The argument or the rub here is who decides what is contitutional. There was an Army Spec. (New was his name I think) that refused to wear the UN beret and was court martialed. I don't know the outcome.

That was Specialist Kelly. He was in my battalion in 3ID before we were deployed to Macedonia. He served 45 and 45 for Article 92-Disobeying and order and was discharged HONORABLY. In fact, he was still there pulling Brigade staff duty when we got back 6 months later. (He was a medic, and incidentally, he won the Brigade soldier of the year board the year before we deployed).

I've been out a while, and this is how I feel about the oath. You're take on it was probably closer to how it really goes, but in the situation described above, I think this is the intent.

We swear or affirm to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foriegn and domestic, but then we are bound to the orders of our leaders. Well, orders are vague, and so are interpretations of the Constitution, and I don't believe that everyone would have the capacity to realize what was a constitutionally correct order and what wasn't. Especially in the lower ranks.

What the oath seems like to me now, knowing what I know, is something like having the pride in knowing that you are defending the constitution, but then not being able to do anything about it.

Look, if we truly lived up to the oath, we would have marched on the Capitol Building a hundred times in the last hundred years. And about 70 of them or so in the last 50.

To answer the question about how would I act if I were still in uniform? Search and Destroy. A solder has not the luxury of politics.

DeltaChaos

[Edited on 26-2-2004 by DeltaChaos]

3IDguywas named Michael New, a medic. Refused to serve 'cause he believed UN was "New World Order". He got off light cause his dad was politically connected and New rallied the Ultra Conservatives back home... Most soldiers will stick with the unit and the buddy next to them. Not gonna fight if they don't have to Americans - they generally don't like violence - once they see it up close
D-C were you Can Do?

Originally posted by Swoody

D-C were you Can Do?

"Can Do, Marne, Raider Brigade, Hooah"

"Canned food, sir!"

or my personal favorite,

"Cannabis Do, sir"

New. I'm thinking who Kelly was. Well, we all spent way too much time at the Rock Fabrik to remember who was who. Good times.

DeltaChaos

Originally posted by jezebel
I have noticed that there are a few members on ATS that are currently enlisted in the military. I am going to ask you some questions and I would like for you to put yourself in these situations as best you can. Tell me what you think you would do or how you would handle the situations.

If the United States were to become a police state and the government started to use military force against American citizens, to control and/or destroy anyone who didn't cooperate voluntarily , how would you react? Would you take up arms to arrest and/or kill fellow countrymen for rebelling against the government? What if you agreed with the rebels? Would you risk making your family and yourself an enemy of the state in order to stand by your convictions? Or would you follow orders to avoid endangering those you love? Do you think that it is OK for the government to use military force to stop a civilian uprising if you, personally, don't agree with their views?

I am putting this out there as a fictitious scenario, and I don't care if you THINK this could happen or not. I want to know how you would feel and react IF IT DID.

technically the british used military force to quell an uprising in the late 1700's

These answers are exactly the ones I had hoped I would not see, but somehow knew I would. I had really hoped that, should those in charge overstep their bounds, the principles of freedom and truth would outweigh the loyalty to an unConstitutional government.

The statement "To answer the question about how would I act if I were still in uniform? Search and Destroy. A solder has not the luxury of politics." is frightening, at best.

Would you really disregard the Constitutional freedoms of Americans, that you are supposed to be protecting, if your commanding officer told you to? Do you realize that the duty of the military is to protect the Constitution and the people, not the government from the people? Does the Declaration of Independence mean anything to the men sworn to uphold it's ideals?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." --Declaration of Independence as originally written by Thomas Jefferson, 1776.

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all." --Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1787.

I currently am enlisted in the military. I took an oath of defending against all enemies foreign and domestic. However, if I didnt agree with what the government is doing and I feel they r orderin me to kill innocent civilians for no reason..then I wouldnt do it. If the government ever ordered me to do that then I would see them as a demostic threat and act accordingly. So to answer your question would I do something I didnt agree with?..yea I do it everyday..but would I sit back and let the murder of innocent americans happen? NO WAY...hope this answered ur questions.

I am no longer enlisted but here is my2 cents.

I swore an oath to protect the country from threats from both without and whithin. I guess it would depend on who the enemy was.

Dam I luv it when true Patriotism shows up. I think that is needlessly concerning you, jezebel.
I would be honored to serve with any of the respondents you have just recieved. A couple
of these folks were confused a bit due to their "new-ness" or short exposure to Patriotic
service. But they are comming along nicely. Precisely as I expected. Now I will make a couple
of posts for concerned citizens like yourself, jezebel. I want to give you a flavor of
what you are seeing and then directly answer all your questions. Now the rest of the respondents
are going to slap their forehead as they read this and say, oh yeah, duhhhh,
how could I have forgotten THAT. Only the new elistment folks will lack the training and
understanding of what the military is all about, so if that is what you had really gotten, my
interest would be the range of responses as a measure of the maturity levels there.
Remember that the only "group" of individuals discriminated against by the Constitution are the military
folk. They give up rights to serve in a dictatorship with its own legal system, but subordinated
to the Republic. Our Founding Fathers were THAT smart. And the purpose of this little
dictatorship is to answer any challenge to the Constitution (and rule of law) in a decisive
manner. That is why the OATH for all Military folk is not to the President, Congress,
Joint Chiefs, or even the people. The loyality OATH is to the basis of our government.
The US is the clearest model to understand but the UK and Aussies have nearly
identical models. Now its time to discuss how this has evolved into a system that
already, by law, answers all the questions you ask.

/\/ight\/\/ing

Originally posted by nightwing
Dam I luv it when true Patriotism shows up.

/\/ight\/\/ing

So far NightWing, I think I and others have the most to gain by reading your post. If in fact I understood it correctly. How I did understand it was that, (1.) as a soldier you took an oath to protect the Constitution and it's Ideals above all. (2.) As a soldier, you willfully agreed to become part of a group(The Military) which has it's own set of rules, and needs to, in order to fullfill that duty of protecting the Constitution against all enemies. (3.)The Military is there to serve the Republic itself, which may or may not include The Government or The People who reside within that Republic. Enemies both foreign and Domestic includes the possibility of that enemy being it's own Gov. and even it's own People, and therefor must be prepared at some level to defend against either or both of them should such a day come about. Is that a correct interpretation to what you wrote?

If so, I'd like to ask a question along those same lines and dealing with this thread. Taking the same situation as Jez has put forward, that being a Rebelion against the Government. How well do you think the Military and it's soldiers would be at locating the correct enemy of the Constitution & it's Republic?

The true enemy isn't always that obvious. Many True Patriots already view the Government and it's practices as being Unconstitutional beyond any question. I believe many of the reasons they think this are known as Fact as well. At the same time, I do not think the entire Government body has been corrupted 100% as of yet. So should such a Revolution actually happen, how well do you think the Military would do in figuring out who the TRUE ENEMY is? You must also take into account the corrupt levels of Military as well, and who they might be serving as a result. Could you clearly decide whether or not a supierior officer was correct in what he was telling you to do? Many proud American Soldiers found out after the fact, how their service in Vietnam was not what they had been told at the time. Similarly, finding out that you've been used as a pawn against your own homeland for causes unjust, is NOT something a soldier should realize after the fact for obvious reasons.

mojom - patience my friend. You gave me a soapbox here.

The year is 1860. The situation is jezebel's original post, second paragraph. The American
Civil War almost destroyed the Union, and many things began to evolve in the rule of law
to avoid, if possible, another such event. As a percentage of the population, the Civil
War cost more than any combination of conflicts and Wars the US ever engaged in, before or
since. The US has yet to fully recover. The lessons learned has created legislation (rule
of law) that continues to evolve to this day. This circumtance and laws are taught to every
officer candidate, senior NCO, and to a lesser degree, even the basic NCO academies.
First Lesson: A law was championed by far-sighted Southern lawmakers in 1878.
They had experienced a fifteen year military occupation by the US Army in
post-Civil War law enforcement. They understood the heel of a jackboot.
Thus was born the PCA

Title 18 US Code, PART I, Chapter 67, � 1385, The Posse Comitatus Act
In a nutshell, this act bans the Army / Air Force from participating in arrests, searches,
seizure of evidence and other police-type activity on U.S. soil. The Coast Guard
and National Guard troops under the control of state governors are excluded from the act.
Under specified circumstances, the Marines can be excluded as well.

www4.law.cornell.edu...

Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of
Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to
execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
Editor's Note: The only exemption has to do with nuclear materials (18 U.S.C. 831 (e)

Still with me? We are going "back to the future' in my next post.


/\/ight\/\/ing

[Edited on 27-2-2004 by nightwing]

Originally posted by nightwing
mojom - patience my friend. You gave me a soapbox here.

/\/ight\/\/ing

I don't think I had anything to do with your 'soapbox' presentation of "U.S. History: by NightWing". You deserve full credit for that one my friend. I simply asked a question of you since you seemed to have the most factual and practicle knowledge dealing with the subject at hand. That being said, I hope I don't have to wade through too many 'History Lessons' before my question is addressed. Reason being that Patience is not exactly one of my strongest attributes.

Under the posse comitatis law, the military can't get involved in local, national
law enforcement, but there is a stipulation that they can help if signed off by
the defense secretary, the chairman of the joint chiefs. (i.e. Marines)
For Army/Air Force, Congress would have to change the law.

LA Riots
29 April 1992: Police officers acquitted in beating trial of Rodney King
Most destructive civil disturbance in US history, causing the deaths of at least 54 people
and more than $800 million in property damage throughout LA County.
More than 10,000 troops from the California National Guard (CANG) and 1,500 Marines
were deployed to the area at the height of operations.



Sample incident: Marines assigned to "assist" local law enforcement, and sqd ldr subordinated
to senior police officer, authority, special circumstance, posse comitatis exclusionary. No other
instruction provided to Marines.

Source: James D. Delk, Fires & Furies: The L.A. Riots

"Police officers responded to a domestic dispute, accompanied by marines. They had just gone
up to the door when two shotgun birdshot rounds were fired through the door, hitting the officers.
One yelled �cover me!� to the marines,
who then laid down a heavy base of fire. . . . The police officer had NOT meant �shoot� when
he yelled �cover me� to the marines. [He] meant . . . point your
weapons and be prepared to respond if necessary.
However, the marines responded instantly in the precise way they had been trained,
where �cover me� means provide me with cover using firepower. . . .
over two hundred bullets [were] fired into that house.�

INTERMISSION. Maybe I can return tomorrow evening. mojom, I am building the background so that the
audience you have been kind enough to point out to me will understand the Military viewpoint and
just how critical it is to know these days.

/\/ight\/\/ing

Originally posted by jezebel
The statement "To answer the question about how would I act if I were still in uniform? Search and Destroy. A solder has not the luxury of politics." is frightening, at best.

Sorry Jezebel, I forgot the context of the post when I wrote this. I was still thinking of a foreign enemy. Actually, I believe that if the Executive branch crossed the line of constitutionality to the extent of sicking it's military on the populous, there would be a military coup. Which is exactly what is supposed to happen in that instance. Congress would welcome it, the Judiciary would back it, and I would trust my officers enough (even still) to make that call correctly. Plus, those officers know better than the president what the military would be in for if it was used against the American civilian population. If there is any people on the planet that would give our military a run for their money, it's the Americans!

DeltaChaos