I remember the words clearly.
"To support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
That’s the part that always stuck with me. Not the follow-on about obeying orders. Not the chain of command. Just that first line. The one that felt weightier than the rest. The one that made the uniform feel like more than just fabric.
But maybe I was wrong.
Because now, with everything unraveling — due process erased in broad daylight, judges arrested, citizens disappeared — the silence from the military isn’t just loud. It’s clarifying.
They’re not standing up. They’re standing down. Or worse, standing by.
And they’ll tell you it’s because they’re apolitical. That staying neutral is the highest form of service. That obedience is discipline, and discipline is what keeps the republic stable. But I don’t buy that anymore. Not when neutrality means becoming the tool of a regime that no longer bothers to hide its aims.
There’s a photograph from 2020 that never really left me. Milley, in fatigues, trailing behind Trump through Lafayette Square after they cleared the protesters with gas and flashbangs. It felt wrong even then. Later, Milley admitted it was wrong. Said he shouldn’t have been there. Said the military must stay out of politics.
But what happens when politics becomes lawlessness? What happens when the commander-in-chief is the domestic enemy?
Do you still stand aside? Do you still salute?
I used to think the answer was obvious. That the Constitution trumped the man. That if those two things came into conflict, the oath demanded we side with the document — not the voice barking orders. But now I see how cleverly the system was built to prevent that. How the law wraps itself around power so tightly that even an illegal order can look just lawful enough to get you court-martialed if you disobey.
And the Insurrection Act? That’s not some emergency backstop to save the people. It’s a weapon waiting to be used against them. It gives the president near-total authority to deploy troops inside the country — even over the objection of state governors — so long as he claims unrest. Claims rebellion. Claims anything he wants.
No checks. No trial. Just troops in the street and a press release to justify it.
We saw it last month. Trump federalized the California National Guard without consent. Sent Marines into LA to prepare for protests that hadn’t even happened yet. That’s not a last resort. That’s a first strike. A warning.
And still — no mass resignations. No defiant refusals. Just quiet compliance. Maybe some commanders slow-walked it. Maybe someone stalled long enough to avoid the worst. But the machine moved forward. Like it always does.
I get it, on some level. The military isn’t built to disobey. Obedience is oxygen. Even if you feel something is wrong, you’re trained to push that feeling aside. There’s no space for personal interpretation when the stakes are national.
But that’s also the trap.
Because when power becomes unchecked — when the executive uses the armed forces to enforce personal loyalty instead of constitutional law — the military becomes something else entirely. Not apolitical. Not neutral. Just captured.
It doesn’t matter if the uniforms stay quiet. It doesn’t matter if the generals say they’re staying out of it.
If you’re carrying out unconstitutional orders, you are not on the sidelines. You are the muscle of collapse.
And maybe the worst part is knowing that some of them do see it. Some officers. Some enlisted. People who know the oath is being twisted into something grotesque. People who signed up to serve an idea and are now watching that idea die, inch by inch. But the system doesn’t give them a way out — not without sacrifice. Career. Freedom. Safety.
So they stay. Or they leave quietly. Or they try to slow the machine from within. I want to believe those acts matter. That somewhere in those small refusals, some piece of the Constitution is still being defended. Not by force. But by principle.
And yet...
It’s hard to shake the feeling that we’ve already passed the point where oaths matter. Where laws constrain. Where the idea of restraint itself is anything but a comforting illusion.
Maybe the oath to the Constitution was the higher one. But maybe the system was never designed to honor that when it counts. Maybe it was always a contradiction — a promise that breaks the moment you try to keep it.
I don't have an answer.
Only this ache. This recognition. That the uniform I once wore was never going to save us.
And that silence, no matter how disciplined, is still a choice.