The Soldier's Dilemma

Every time an American enlists in military capacity for our country he takes the following oath of service:

“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.”

If one is to take this oath seriously, and I would propose our nation would not now exist as a democracy if it had not been taken seriously, one must consider the dilemma it presents. Our history is rife with unconstitutional actions our military has supported. The internment without trial or hearing of USA citizens who happened to be of Japanese ancestry. Amendments 4,5, and 6 were utterly and without apology (until decades later) stripped, via military force their constitutional rights for reasons which at the time seemed compelling but for which, in hindsight, there was little justification. Sequestering suspects has never been synonymous with the taking of all of their major possessions. There was no consideration for even an Escrow holding service when President Roosevelt issued this infamous executive order.

I site this case from our history, to cause the reader to pause before reflexively shaking their head to what I am about to say.

The President is also sworn to uphold the constitution of the United States. The true citizen also recognizes the covenant with this sacred charter . If we cannot abide as a unified nation under its directives we are in peril of loosing our purpose and strength as a nation.

The American soldier is trained to kill. He (I use the pronoun, he only because it seems nature has given men the advantage as the recipient of testosterone) is the deliverer of destruction and chaos to our enemies “both foreign and domestic”. As Rush Limbaugh is famous for noting the military must ‘kill the enemy and break their stuff’. I never served in the military. I have had family and friends who have described their service to me however and I have listened to their accounts with great interest.

A soldier takes orders. He always has a superior officer to whom he must answer, and obey. His options in the face of an obvious absence of legal directive are complex and difficult if not impossible to exercise. The possibility that a soldier may be issued an order to kill an innocent, either without due cause or even by mistake, is the most unsavory of dilemma’s. I have never met a bad soldier and I have known many. It is my opinion, though some exceptions exist, that the American soldier is righteous. The fact that a soldier can regard himself rightly as righteous and installed under a banner of goodness is the most empowering aspect to a man tired, wet from sweat, hungry from lack of food and faced buy difficult odds. It is the heart of his charge and the menace to our enemies. Gods arms do not wilt at the approach of his sons in arms. It is by unbounded mercy and wisdom of the most high that mercy and justice prevails, but the Almighty’s ledger of sins weighs heavy with bloody ink whenever this nations covenant has been treacherously breached. The dilemma presents, leaving the innocent soldier as a mere mercenary of dubious action. Soldiers are not murderers. They are men (and women) of high conscience. Their children are adored and their spouses often incredibly strained by the self imposed limits of fidelity;
this comes in addition to the weight of a rifle, with the keeping of a creed ready to exercise by the quick side of the angel of death. By force of will and years of training the soldier carries the means of death, with a commensurate ability to push aside natural empathy.

Death rides quicker when it is fastened to the means by which it is dispatched. To feel compassion for ones enemy must be set aside during the felling of the sword. The gore and agonies must ultimately be traversed in order to bring it to an end. The unholy misfit who deems himself supreme commander, must never imperil the righteous conscience of the American soldier. The men and women whose hands must necessarily be stained with blood, must know at their death, that they have been faithful to their covenant. I speak of the constitution of the United States of America for which these saints among us walk into peril.

The constitution has been more imperiled within the last few decades than perhaps any other time in history. Heads of state (sworn to uphold the constitution) are espousing publicly the merits of surrendering our sovereignty with the United Nations, Federal amalgamation with foreign treasuries, the fairness doctrine is juxtaposed horribly against the first amendment right of free speech, the second amendment in particular, namely the right to bear arms nearly erased in several states and in addition to the perfidious compunction of these weak minded men we have the inventions of homosexual marriage and one racial inequity placed upon the scales against another in fearless experiments, to see rather, if the paper which sits helpless within its glass confines in Washington D.C will get up and defend itself. These men are mistakenly, arrogant in the surety of their actions. For in the roles in her defense there is civilian and there is soldier. The American military is more conservatively linked to the defense of the constitution because it is born and sworn to uphold it. It is composed of a might and purpose which transcends its implements, its guns and bombs and missiles. We the people, when called to muster, are no fiction. Blood may indeed be taken one day when the bounds of our constitution are obliterated by the foolish whims of tyranny. The faces of communism and socialism are entering the worlds alleyways, a fevered couple engaging the ancient unity of lust and profit, power and subjugation.

We should play neither the harlot nor her patron. We must stand accountable to this covenant with our fellow man. The constitution is a compact made before God and to this I do not render as fiction.

Count me the citizen and let me aspire as soldier for America and her constitution.

Milton