Just Following Orders

I want you all to put on your thinking caps and use your imagination to … ummm…imagine… that you are 24 years old. If, in reality, you are currently within earshot of 24, I envy your youth but place yourself into the situation I will describe forthwith.

Anyway. 24 or thereabouts. You are in a steel tube longer than a football field, which is submerged beneath the ocean, propelled by nuclear power. Why are you here? You’re here because you grew up poor, and Uncle Sam promised to help you pay for college if you joined the military. Shooting exotic folk with a rifle doesn’t seem like your idea of a fun weekend, but submarine life doesn’t require that. And you still get that sweet sweet GI Bill. When it comes time to choose - re-enlist or go home forever - they throw Stupid Money at you, and growing up poor, you take it.

Politics don’t matter much here. Until they do. Cuz the President decides that These People must NOT have a weapon of mass destruction. Intelligence does not indicate that they do, but that is inconsequential. We must ensure that they can’t have one.

And so the United States of America plays World Police. And we bomb the FUCK out of these people. Indiscriminately. Far as we can tell, they’re all terrorists. Mamas and Papas and Grampas and Meemaws and the kids too. Killing a civilian is just converting a potential future insurgent into a former future potential insurgent.

Since we’re in the Time Machine, that was Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. And hoo boy, history doesn’t repeat but it rhymes and it’s Operation Epic Fury in 2026.

But there’s 24 year old you. And your boat gets the missile tasking. And the missions are planned. The Skipper briefs the crew on the situation, the relevant intel. The WHY.

And the order comes.

You’ve spent your entire military career training for this moment. To follow orders and respond without conscience or hesitation. To kill.

Would you really have the fortitude - the fucking BALLS - to disobey that order?

I don’t know where “my” missiles went, back in 2003. But now we’ve got the 24 hour news cycle and every American sailor that launched a Tomahawk missile on that day must wonder…did I just target a girls’ school?

For some it will never cross their minds. For others it will haunt them forever.

I could have said “No.” I wanted to say “No”.

I could have disobeyed the unlawful order of a President operating outside of his Constitutional power, but I didn’t.

That’s a big weight to carry for someone that far down the decision chain.

For some that will make them feel absolved. “I was just following orders.” For others… we carry the weight of the President’s Lie for the rest of our lives.