When it comes to transferring command as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), the military is a bailment. It is something with which the CJCS is entrusted for a four-year term in office, either to maintain as is or to improve upon before transferring it on to a successor.
A transfer of this bailment occurred on Sept. 29 as U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley retired and a new CJCS – USAF Gen. C.Q. Brown – was sworn in. However, unlike Milley’s predecessor – Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford – who had transferred to him an improved military, Milley left a battered and bruised bailment for Brown. Milley could not simply ride off into the sunset, without demonstrating yet one more time why he was unfit to hold the office he was vacating.
Milley had been selected as CJCS by President Donald Trump in 2019 over the objections of both Dunford and his boss, Defense Secretary James Mattis. While Milley had an impressive record, he was an Army ROTC 1980 graduate of Princeton University who lacked combat experience – a factor that would negatively play out two years later by virtue of a disastrous U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan under President Joe Biden.
Whether it was a matter of Biden taking Milley’s advice over the withdrawal or ignoring it, in either case it was a disaster that left 13 of our warriors and over a hundred Afghan civilians dead in a suicide terrorist attack, an unknown number of U.S. citizens and Afghan friends behind and $83 billion of military equipment over which the Taliban took ownership. (The White House later claimed it was only $7 billion worth of equipment.) Any military leader worth his salt would have resigned at this point as the withdrawal was clearly not well thought out.
For Milley, it was not the first time something was not well thought out as evidenced by a photograph that disastrously undermined the long-honored tradition of the military staying out of politics. The tradition is that “never the twain shall meet,” meaning the military should never undertake an activity suggesting it favors one party’s leadership over another. It simply provides advice to the president behind a shield of political neutrality.
However, during the 2020 protests following the death of George Floyd in the hands of police, Trump was photographed crossing through a group of protesters in Washington Lafayette Square to get to a church. At his side was a battle fatigue clad Milley. Critics chastised Milley for the obvious politicalization of the military.
Interestingly, recognizing the damage he had done by virtue of this photograph and acknowledging he should not have been there, Milley was not later discouraged from introducing the political policies of wokeism into the military under Biden.
Milley also took steps as CJCS in the days after the 2020 presidential election won by Biden to prevent what he perceived to be a possible coup by Trump who claimed voting fraud was involved. While Milley acknowledged later Trump never issued an illegal order, the chairman had written a draft resignation letter he never delivered and coordinated with the other JCS members to resign one-by-one to draw attention to the coup that never happened.
Milley took things a step further as the January 6 chaos took place in Washington, D.C. He called his Chinese counterpart twice to allay Beijing’s concerns Trump might take military action against it. Failing to advise Trump he was doing so was a slap in the face to the president and went beyond Milley’s authority. Milley had no idea whether his Chinese counterpart would interpret this as a ruse luring Beijing into a false sense of security for Trump to then launch an attack, causing China perhaps to reason a preemptive strike was in order.
At his retirement ceremony, Milley correctly noted it is not the president to whom the loyalty of the military is owed but to the Constitution. An oath is taken to support and defend that Constitution. It was hypocritical for Milley to claim this as his actions on several occasions appear to have dismissed the fact the Constitution clearly provides that the military is subject to civilian control.
Milley also decided to disregard the military tradition against not injecting himself into politics. In noting the list of people to which the military does not take an oath, he included – in an obvious slap at Trump – “a wannabe dictator.”
Thus, as shown by his last act while on active duty, Milley demonstrated he just cannot toe the nonpolitical line. In doing so, he perpetrated a grave disservice upon the military. I venture to say there are many of us veterans who are happy to see Milley go.
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