Oh, Millie. You mean General Millie. General Millie, sorry, former chair, the time chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff right before he retired. You see, we in uniform are unique. We are unique among the world’s armies. We are unique among the world’s militaries. We don’t take an oath to a country. We don’t take an oath to a tribe. We don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king or a queen or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We don’t take an oath to an individual.

We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that it’s America and we’re willing to die to protect it. Every soldier, sailor, airman, marine, guardian, and coast guardman, each of us commits our very life to protect and defend that document regardless of personal price. And we are not easily intimidated. Any problems with that? Yes. The words in the oath are not what he said they are. When you take the oath, and I’ve taken it many times ever since I was commissioned at West Point, you say, I swear to uphold and defend the United States Constitution and to obey the orders of the President and the officers appointed over me.

That’s key. If you are a professional soldier and you get an order from the President or the officers appointed over you, who are also appointed by the President, and you do not think that this order is legitimate, if it’s immoral or you think it violates the Constitution, then you have an obligation to resign. That’s very important. Now, if you don’t think it violates the Constitution, or you’re not sure, or you don’t think it’s immoral, then you are expected to obey. Now, Milley was the senior advisor to the President, senior military advisor to the President of the United States.

He commands or commanded nothing. He has no authority. Milley, as the senior military advisor to the President, took many actions while he was in that office that really upset people, not the least of which, independently, without consulting the President, or as far as we know, anyone in the national security arena, to call his opposite number in China and reassure the Defense Minister of China that whatever was happening was no threat to him. Now, I’m not bothered by the fact that he made the comment that there was no threat to China because there wasn’t. But on the other hand, he acted without authority.

He did something that he was not authorized to do, and he pretended that he had a degree of authority in the chain of command that he didn’t have. That’s the tip of the iceberg. So, this issue of, I swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, number one, and number two, as part of that, and I obey the orders of the President and the officers appointed over me, there’s tension there, Judge. That has always been there. That was something MacArthur complained about. We know how that ended up with MacArthur. It’s funny that the oath that judges take is nearly identical to the one the President takes, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.

Nothing is there about people telling you it’s what to do or having to comply with orders. But that’s a big difference, Judge. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It’s a profound… We are not. We in uniform are not free agents. If you’re a regular Army of the United States, you’re not a free agent. You don’t pick and choose where to fight, when to fight, how to fight, all this sort of business. But if you feel strongly about something, then resign. And one of the biggest complaints I’ve had throughout my lifetime, I’ve listened to all of these general officers that retired, and they would say, well, I was present for that meeting, and I knew that was wrong.

Well, if you thought it was wrong, General, why didn’t you say anything? And we went through this in Vietnam. I’ve heard this over and over and over again. So, General Milley, don’t posture as some heroic figure that stood up to a President that you didn’t like, who pursued policies you didn’t privately support, and tell us that you did all that you could. He didn’t. [tr:trw].

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