Upon their commissioning, and at every promotion ceremony thereafter, officers of the United States armed forces take the following oath:
“I, (the name), having been appointed a ( the rank) in the United States ( the branch of service), 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; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the office upon which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
As astonishing as this might sound to the readership of the Daily Kos, when applying that oath, military officers in the United States are taught to differentiate between the government of the United States and the Constitution of the United States. In the Marine Corps, at every level of officer training, from The Basic School (TBS) which every 2nd Lieutenant attends, to the Naval Warfare College, which senior officers attend, supporting and defending the Constitution is thought to be insular--separate and distinct--from supporting and defending the U.S. government, a presidency, the President's policies, or any law that Congress might pass. Furthermore, it is the solemn duty of each officer, as an individual, to determine what it means to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. An order from higher authority cannot be given to an officer defining what that means, and the officer corps of the other military branches are taught to think exactly the same way.
If you learn only one thing from my DK Diaries, understand the above paragraph.
Upon enlisting, and at every promotion ceremony thereafter, the enlisted ranks of the United States armed forces take a different oath:
"I, (the name) 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."
The difference between the oaths is intentional, and critical, to the security of the United States. If, in the unlikely circumstance the President or the Congress of the United States becomes unhinged, and begins issuing orders or making laws that endangers the Constitution, as the military understands the Constitution, the officers of the military will ignore, and if necessary, resist those orders in order to protect the Constitution. On the other-hand, if, in the unlikely circumstance senior officers in the military become unhinged (conduct a coup) and begin issuing orders that endangers the Constitution, the enlisted ranks of the military are bound by their oath to ignore, and if necessary, resist those orders, and follow the orders of the President. Separate oaths and different responsibilities: there is a built in “friction,” between the officer corps and the enlisted ranks to prevent an unhinged President or Congress, or a military coup, from driving the country off a cliff. And trust me: the officer corps, and the senior enlisted ranks, take this responsibility, and this friction, very, very, seriously.
If you have a seatbelt attached to the chair you’re sitting in, I suggest you put it on right now, because the rest of this is going to be a rough, unhappy, ride.
There is only one (1) issue in the general discourse of the United States where the officer corps and the enlisted ranks of the armed forces will act together to ignore, and if necessary, resist the orders of a President or the laws of a Congress in their support and defense of the Constitution against domestic enemies, and that issue is the protection of the 2nd Amendment. The 2nd Amendment is a sacred thing to the military: to many officers and enlisted personnel, the 2nd Amendment IS the Constitution, the rest is verbiage.
In a national emergency over the 2nd Amendment created by radical Southern and rural state legislatures, the armed forces of the United States will be unavailing.
All military officers (and senior enlisted) are well versed in the Posse Comitatus Act. Click on the link below and read about it if you are not, and make sure and read about its history and purpose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
But paradoxically, the military does not study (or understand) the Insurrection Act. Click on that link below, and make sure to read about the 2008 repeal of George Bush’s provisions—it’s not what you think!
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
You will note how the two laws conflict with each other. That’s intentional. The idea is to obstruct the President's authority to commit active duty military force within the united States.
The bottom line: a President had better have a very good reason to ask for active-duty military personnel to put down a civil disturbance--that’s why the state national guards are always called out—and an armed rebellion over the 2nd Amendment will not, I repeat not, will not be considered a good reason by the military.
And I haven't gotten to the serious part yet.
Unless things have changed in the last few years, every Marine and Naval officer (at some point in their career) will read and discuss the ramifications raised in a fine piece of academic work called: Going South: U.S. Navy Officer Resignations & Dismissals On the Eve of the Civil War, by William S. Dudley. Take time to read it, every American should understand what it means.
http://www.history.navy.mil/...
In brief:
"While still less than a hundred years old in 1861, the nation stood on the brink of catastrophic civil war as states in the lower south followed South Carolina in seceding from the Union. These dire times confronted officers of Southern origin in the country's military service with an agonizing decision whether to remain under the "Old Flag" or leave and follow their section. Local, state and family ties ran very deep. Men of the highest principles from young midshipmen at the Naval Academy to the most senior officers who had devoted their lives to the Navy---Raphael Semmes, Josiah Tarnall, Matthew Fontaine Maury, for example, resigned their commissions to cast their lot with the Confederacy."
The DK readership will instantly recognize parallels with today's 2nd Amendment debate:
"The question of civil war inevitably raises issues of patriotism and treason, of loyalty to nation, state, region, or ideology. Conflicting loyalties were the heart of the matter in the American Civil War. As the debate over slavery, combined with mounting sectionalism, brought this nation to the brink of civil war, it could not fail to affect the feelings and expressed attitudes of those who had chosen to serve in the Unted States armed forces. There are many cases of agonizing decisions made by officers of southern birth and up-bringing who searched the depth of their souls to
discover where lay the higher loyalty. Colonel Robert E. Lee's case is the best known. He was offered command of both armies and had the unique dilemma of choosing between them. Captain David G. Farragut did not have such prestigious offers to consider, but as a southerner, he chose to serve the Union. There were, however, hundreds of other officers in the United States Navy, Marine Corps, and Army who faced the same decision. When forced to choose, many elected to "go South," to leave the service they had sworn a legal oath to uphold. When considering the bonds of kinship and regional sentiment, one can understand why the officers "went South," but equally understandable was the hostile reaction of the Lincoln administration."
In the opening days of the Civil War:
1) 24% of the naval officers in the United States Navy resigned, or were dismissed from the service, and everyone of them joined the Confederate cause.
2) 30% of all Marine Corps officers resigned, or were dismissed from the service, and they too joined the Confederate cause.
"Some of the most valuable U.S. Marine Corps officers became Confederate Marines. According to Ralph Donnelly, this was significant, for "the rather modest record of the U.S. Marines during the Civil War was due to the fact that many of the better trained and more experienced officers still of an age for active service did 'go South.”
3) 25% of all Army officers resigned, or were dismissed from the service, and they joined the Confederate cause. The actual number of officers who resigned from the U.S. Army was much higher than the Marine Corps, between, 270-313 officers.
"There were approximately 1,100 officers in the U.S. Army as of December 1860; accordingly, one may estimate that about 25 per cent of those on active duty in the U.S. Army joined the Confederate forces."
When this paper was discussed at TBS, there were eighty or ninety 2nd Lieutenants in the room and the instructor asked,
"If it came to it, how many of you would resign to support and defend slavery?" Everybody laughed and nobody raised their hand, of-course. Then he asked,
"If it came to it, how many of you would resign to support and defend the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution?" Every hand in the room went up, including the instructor's. Then he asked,
"How many of you would fight, become a combatant against the government, to support and defend the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution?" Every hand in the room went up, including the instructor’s, and nobody was laughing. After class, I went down and asked the instructor if that result was common, and he replied,
"As far as I know, in the 7-year history of this presentation, not a single 2nd Lieutenant has failed to raise their hand."
Years later, in a room full of mid-level to senior Marine and Naval officers, the same issues were discussed, and the same questions were asked, and the result was exactly the same.
The surface Navy has similar views on this matter, as does the U.S. Army. Both branches are fully prepared and dedicated to honoring their oaths: to support and defend the 2nd Amendment through extraordinary means if necessary. The Air Force is a little different, as is the silent service of the Navy. The men and women of the ICBM missile (nuclear deterrent) force structure of the Air Force, and the ICBM submarines of the Navy are carefully selected and indoctrinated to follow orders from the National Command Authority, but the pilots of the Air Force would defend the 2nd Amendment if push came to shove. (There are individual exceptions to all of this of-course, but the above reflects the very distinct and defined way of thinking ingrained in the military.)
The Marine Corps--your Marine Corps--is a very Southern and a very archaic institution. It is full of men and women who are primarily, indeed the vast majority are, from Southern and rural states. I began OCS with 870 officer candidates and graduated with 245, and every last one of the survivors was from the South, a rural state like Wyoming, or a rural part of a state. Being in the Marine Corps means you believe in, and support the 2nd Amendment. You don’t volunteer to be a Marine unless you believe that, and you wouldn’t make it through basic training unless you were raised that way. It’s a cultural thing.
The Army is mostly the same way. If you’re not culturally pro-2nd Amendment when you join, you will be after humping an M4 around for four (4) years. All of the special forces: Delta, Green Berets, Rangers, SEALs, and FORECON are all strongly, even radically, pro-2nd Amendment. In short, I have never met a Marine, Navy, Air Force, or Army officer (or enlisted man or woman for that matter) who was not solidly pro-2nd Amendment, not a single one. By "pro" I mean would fight and die to support and defend it. Again, it is very much a cultural thing.
Closely related to the above, during the entire time that I was in the Marine Corps, I only came across three (3) Democrats, besides my self, and interestingly enough one of them was Jeffery Chessani, who was in the same company with me at OCS. (As a Lieutenant Colonel, Jeff was the commander of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines during the extended combat in October and November of 2005 around Haditha.)
Many (most) Marine Corps generals are Civil War buffs, with one interesting twist, they call the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Sharpsburg, and in 1990, the commanding general of Camp Lejeune was referring to the Civil War in all his speeches as, "The War of North Aggression." At TBS, the tactics presentations were not about Union generals, they were about Confederate ones, Nathan Bedford Forrest being considered a god. At one Marine Corps Ball, I once heard a full Marine general (4-stars) call the President of the United States a name that should have had him court marshaled, and at another, I heard a Medal of Honor winner do the same thing. As a general rule: the officers and senior enlisted of the U.S. military are mostly conservative, right-wing Republicans.
Our nation has been at war for over a decade, and we have hundreds of thousands of multiple tour combat veterans who have a pretty narrow-minded view of firearms control. You don’t spend a tour in a war zone with a M4 by your side without falling in love with it. (And I do mean fall in love. That weapon is with you 24/7 and it is literally your life.) As far as these people are concerned, the Constitution means the 2nd Amendment and some other things, and every single one has sworn an oath, and put their life on the line, to protect it.
When I hear someone say, “Who cares if 29% of the U.S. population thinks an armed rebellion might be necessary to protect our Constitutional rights, those people are stupid, fat, blowhards and they would never stand a chance against the U.S. military,” I-shake-my-head-in-disbelief. (Bill Maher does it every Friday on HBO on Real Time with Bill Maher, and I’ve read it dozens of times in the DK Comment section.) If an armed rebellion ever occurs in this country over the 2nd Amendment, the “insurgents” will be a lot of the active duty military, and former active duty military who are honoring their oaths to protect the Constitution. And there will be millions of them.
In terms of the war in Afghanistan, the combined armed forces of the United States of America, and tens of thousands of private contract operators, have been in combat for over twelve (12) years, and our nation has spent over 1 trillion dollars, fighting a Taliban force that at any one time numbers no more than 10,000 fighters, of which only 2,000 to 3,000 are trained, skilled, motivated, full-time insurgents. Add in 5,000 more to cover foreign and Al Qaeda fighters of which 2,000 are full-time insurgents, and in all that time, for all that cost, we have been fighting at any one time about 5,000 trained, full-time insurgents. The Taliban are poorly trained compared to the U.S. military, and very poorly armed compared to the American civilian population.
Simply said: the 1.2 million new assault rifles that will be placed into circulation this year alone, combined with the millions already in circulation, and the million that will be placed in circulation in the coming years, and the millions of high capacity magazines, and the billions of rounds of ammunition--and I haven’t gotten to the long range hunting and sniper rifles yet--would be used by a huge, very sophisticated, U.S. military trained insurgency who would be fighting to protect the Constitution.
And don’t be expecting the formation of battalions and divisions and armies, Civil War style. Everyone knows, especially the U.S. military, that asymmetric warfare is the only way to defeat the power of the combined arms of the U.S. military. You can expect something akin to the internecine Border War between Kansas and Missouri during the Civil War, something ugly, something full of atrocities, something truly horrible like the sectarian violence that was unleashed in Iraq.
Please don’t get angry with me. And please don't HR this diary. It's important I think for it to be read.
The legislatures in Kansas, Wyoming, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, every Southern state, Montana and Alaska, about 30 states in all, are controlled by right-wing, ultra-conservative, ultra-religious, defective-thinking fanatics who will not hesitate to create a crisis that will look a lot like the crisis in the Southern state legislatures circa 1860 that started the Civil War, and resulted in over 25% of American military officers to “Go South.”
If you need evidence of this craziness read:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
They are trying to do it right now and about 25 other states are actively following the lead of Kansas. Read the above article and then read Going South, the parallels in the political climate between 1860 and 2013 are pretty disturbing.
So I ask again. What is the end game in all of this. What is the path to “victory” in the firearms control debate?