When I was a kid, western movies and WWII movies were very popular. My favorite Western show was The Lone Ranger and I’ll never forget when my dad took my brother Stevie and me to see the D-Day film, “THE LONGEST DAY” at a local drive-in theatre. These fictional dramas made some real life lasting impressions.
The old joke about Westerns was that you could always tell who the good guys were because, like the Lone Ranger, they wore white hats.
But, as I grew older, I realized that, in real life, the good guys in law enforcement and in the military are the guys who actually acknowledge a standard for right and wrong and then live up to that standard. In the military, the good soldier believes in God and so he takes his oath before God seriously as he swears to uphold the Constitution of these united States.
His oath is NOT an oath to obey just any command or order but only those commands and orders that are consistent with God’s law and are authorized by the Constitution – the supreme law of the land.
This leads me to ask the following: If “We the People” of these united States have not, through our elected representatives in Congress, declared war since WWII, then how can we lawfully send armed troops to Korea, or to Vietnam or to the Persian Gulf or to Grenada, or to Iraq or to Afghanistan or Libya?
In each of these cases, didn’t the President, as Commander in Chief, violate the Constitution? And if he is violating the Constitution, aren’t those in uniform also violating their oaths?
Now before you say that they are just following orders and really don’t have a choice in the matter, please read the history of the Nuremberg trials, where the Nazi soldiers and judges and political leaders used the very same excuse. They were found guilty. And they were executed. Real military and law enforcement heroes follow the rule of law. They don’t break the law and then claim they were just following orders.
If thinking about this makes you mad, you are not alone.
Listen to: Who are the Good Guys