ILLEGAL ORDERS: FOLLOW OR NOT

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How illegal orders were explained in the 1970’s Army.

The beginning of the All-Volunteer Army came with something extra. New boots needed to know about ‘illegal orders.’

Call it a special understanding to make the Army a more attractive choice.

Not more swearing, yelling, smacking, punching, and general ass-kicking. And no more illegal orders.

The reason, we learned, came from My Lai, or the My Lai Massacre as it’s known today and everyday since March 16, 1968.

Soldiers would never be ordered to gun a trench full of people again. If they were, they’d have recourse.

Drill Sergeant Homer Easterling explained the difference between clarification and disobedience.

BoomerPdx remembers the distinction.“If you find yourself in the field and your squad leader, platoon leader, or a random officer, orders you to place your weapon on full-auto and move to a trench and waste everyone in sight, give feedback on what you think the order means.

“For example, if Lt. Dumbass tells me to ‘waste’ everyone in the trench, I ask if he means for me to open fire on defenseless people and shoot every bullet in my rifle, re-load, and do it again until I run out of ammunition.

“If he says, “yes,” then I respond that he is issuing an illegal order and I cannot obey.”

By 2016 standards it sounds pretty clear. What isn’t clear is what to do if you accidentally fall into the trench, or someone behind you misfires their weapon into your back.

Fragging in Vietnam wasn’t just for new officers cycling through the war to collect the combat command badge needed to further their career, not just for ‘by the book’ new guys out of West Point getting people under them killed.

Friendly fire comes from unexpected sources. The results of being dead is the same.

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Illegal Orders Today

The easiest thing to do is follow orders. Do what you’re told and you’ve got a built in excuse, a great reason for doing things and a reasonable out if you’re caught.

“He told me to do it,” didn’t work in grade school, or now. Back then you’d have to answer, “If Jimmy jumped off a bridge would you jump off a bridge?”

Today you don’t get that other question, just a tag that calls you what you are: a moron.

Explain to a cop the next time you get pulled over for speeding: “But everyone was going fast.”

Ask a wife who catches you in a lie: “What part don’t you believe?”

Explain this to a boss: “It’s not all my fault.”

Those damn Nazi war criminals ruined the ‘just following orders’ defense. Like you can’t guard an extermination center, a death camp, without consequence?

The short answer is no.

We can agree that America is nation of laws. Agree? And that laws must be upheld to maintain order. Agree?

Civics 101 explains that ignoring one law weakens all laws, then all hell breaks loose. Theoretically.

When Donald Trump says a federal judge can’t do his job because of his nationality, we hear from other Republicans who break the chain of command with their calls of racism.

When a Stanford kid works it with a passed out woman behind a dumpster, gets six months in prison and his dad says, “He’s paying a steep price for twenty minutes of action,” it’s time to break that chain of command.

Paul Ryan broke the chain.

Everyone with a clear view of the judiciary will follow. Sometimes silence is the order of the day.

On the Stanford kid’s sexual assault sentence, everyone with a daughter and son needs to break the chain. That noise you hear is the chain rattling.

That loud metal on metal clang you don’t hear is the jail door closing behind Brock Turner.

His dad’s words are setting him up for the worst six months of his life.

If you need to break the chain of command, the chain of ignorance, do it.

You’ll feel better than you ever have.

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