Military loyalty
Amid all the news coverage of the Iran war and Trump’s obsession with “election integrity,” his administration is doing something that is perhaps more dangerous than anything else, and it has been flying under the radar.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has been systematically firing, forcing into retirement, or preventing the promotion of many experienced, battle-tested, highly regarded military officers. Most recently he forced into retirement General Chris Donahue, the widely respected commander of the U.S. Army in Europe and Africa. General Donohue was potentially in line to be one of the Joint Chiefs, and now he’s gone, for no reason the Pentagon is willing to explain.
U.S. military officers have always sworn their allegiance to the U.S. Constitution and not to a specific government, and certainly not to a specific person. This has made our military non-partisan, both respected and revered for its professionalism and integrity. But now Hegseth is firing professional officers who swore their oath of loyalty to the Constitution. If he is replacing them with men whose loyalty will be to President Trump, we are in deep trouble.
Both history and current world affairs show what happens when a military is loyal to a man instead of a country. We could see the result of Hegseth’s actions in November if Trump again puts the military into the streets, this time to interfere with the midterm election.