I regret to inform you that I intend to resign as your Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Thank you for the honor of appointing me as senior ranking officer. The events of the last couple weeks have caused me to do deep soul-searching, and I can no longer faithfully support and execute your orders as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is my belief that you were doing great and irreparable harm to my country. I believe that you have made a concerted effort over time to politicize the United States military. I thought that I could change that. I’ve come to the realization that I cannot, and I need to step aside and let someone else try to do that.
Second, you are using the military to create fear in the minds of the people—and we are trying to protect the American people. I cannot stand idly by and participate in that attack, verbally or otherwise, on the American people. The American people trust their military and they trust us to protect them against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and our military will do just that. We will not turn our back on the American people.
Third, I swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States and embodied within that Constitution is the idea that says that all men and women are created equal. All men and women are created equal, no matter who you are, whether you are white or Black, Asian, Indian, no matter the color of your skin, no matter if you’re gay, straight or something in between. It doesn’t matter if you’re Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jew, or choose not to believe. None of that matters. It doesn’t matter what country you came from, what your last name is—what matters is we’re Americans. We’re all Americans. That under these colors of red, white, and blue—the colors that my parents fought for in World War II—means something around the world. It’s obvious to me that you don’t think of those colors the same way I do. It’s obvious to me that you don’t hold those values dear and the cause that I serve.
And lastly it is my deeply held belief that you’re ruining the international order, and causing significant damage to our country overseas, that was fought for so hard by the Greatest Generation that they instituted in 1945. Between 1914 and 1945, 150 million people were slaughtered in the conduct of war. They were slaughtered because of tyrannies and dictatorships. That generation, like every generation, has fought against that, has fought against fascism, has fought against Nazism, has fought against extremism. It’s now obvious to me that you don’t understand that world order. You don’t understand what the war was all about. In fact, you subscribe to many of the principles that we fought against. And I cannot be a party to that. It is with deep regret that I hereby submit my letter of resignation.
Bold, even heroic words from General Mark A. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the senior but subordinate military advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America. Milley’s words appear in an about-to-be published book, The Divider: Trump in the White House.
“Great and irreparable harm to my country.”
“Politicize the United States Military.”
“Using the military to create fear in the minds of the people.”
“Under these colors of red, white, and blue . . . you don’t think of those colors the same way I do. It’s obvious to me that you don’t hold those values dear and the cause I serve.”
“You’re ruining the international order and causing significant damage to our country overseas.”
“You don’t understand that world order.”
“You subscribe to many of the principles that we fought against.”
Of course, the general was right to resign. To do the right thing. To condemn grievous and dangerous ideas that could bring obloquy, danger, and perhaps even disaster to the United States.
Bite the bullet. Go out the right way. Duty, honor, country. Show President Trump what general officers are made of.
There was, however, one problem.
Milley did not resign.
To learn why, the book makes clear that it was the Lafayette Square incident that prompted General Milley’s false bravado.
That day, law enforcement officers in riot gear cleared protesters demonstrating after the death of George Floyd from the square in front of the White House, at times using tear gas and rubber bullets. The operation allowed President Donald Trump to pose for a photo op at nearby St. John’s Episcopal Church.
In the days after the Lafayette Square incident, Milley sat in his office at the Pentagon, writing and rewriting drafts of a letter of resignation. There were short versions of the letter; there were long versions. His preferred version was the one that [is quoted above].
Apparently, despite excoriating his Commander-in-Chief and accusing him not-so-subtly of harming our allies and helping our enemies, instead of falling on his sword by retiring, Milley would remain in place.
Why?
To quote the book, quoting the General:
“F**k that sh*t,” he told his staff. “I’ll just fight him.” The challenge, as he saw it, was to stop Trump from doing any more damage, while also acting in a way that was consistent with his obligation to carry out the orders of his Commander-in-Chief. Yet the Constitution offered no practical guide for a general faced with a rogue President. Never before since the position had been created, in 1949—or at least since Richard Nixon’s final days, in 1974—had a chairman of the Joint Chiefs encountered such a situation. “If they want to court-martial me, or put me in prison, have at it,” Milley told his staff. “But I will fight from the inside.”
“I will fight from the inside,” rang a bell for me. A loud one!
During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), as four of his army columns moved on Madrid a “Nationalist” (i.e., Hitler-supported) General referred to his militant supporters within the capital as his “fifth column,” intent on undermining the loyalist government from within.
Paradoxically, the Army four-star American Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, proudly confessed that he was a fifth columnist—“I will fight from the inside”—and the enemy was his own Commander-in-Chief.
The four-star general, who still serves, was a confessed fifth columnist.
(See my August 3, 2022, Blog for Milley and the constitutional crime of treason.)
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