There is something important that everyone should know about admirals in the U.S. Navy: their word is as good as law. They speak with years of authority, experience, and credibility behind them, and they are entrusted with some of the most important military decisions in peace and war.
Anyone who has worked for or in proximity to an admiral has seen this power on display when said admiral casually muses on a given topic. The phrases: “I wonder if,” “Let’s consider,” and the like are guaranteed to send the flag staff into a frenzy of action because if the admiral is wondering about it, the staff had better learn everything it can, make ready to educate the admiral on the topic, and ultimately act on the admiral’s direction.
Of course, admirals, being human, frequently simply just wonder about things. Topics in briefings or the news may pique their curiosity, but woe unto the staff whose admiral expresses this curiosity aloud, for surely it is interpreted as the next best thing to a direct order, and no officer wants to be unprepared if this absentminded musing comes up again for further discussion. Consequently, the best admirals (and leaders at all levels) are very judicious with their words, lest their idle speculation be mistaken for an order, or vice versa.
Enter retired Admiral Bill McRaven, whose record of service, accomplishments, and ability to give a memorable speech is of no doubt. Last week, he wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times titled: “Our Republic is Under Attack From the President.”
This piece, published in America’s most influential newspaper, begins, as all sailors’ conversations must, with a story. The admiral pens a touching and sincere paean to the men and women of the armed forces and intelligence community, past and present. Included is a brief reference to patriot and badass Senior Chief Shannon Kent, who was killed in action in Syria and should probably have a DDG named after her sometime soon.
The article soon, like many online writings from retired veterans that start out pretty good, takes a turn. The admiral describes his intuitive feeling that many service members feel “underlying current of frustration, humiliation, anger and fear.” This passage comes to a head when McRaven describes being shouted at by another retired flag officer that “I don’t like the Democrats, but Trump is destroying the Republic!”
We come to the admiral’s thesis. The president is destroying the republic. As much as the image of two old veterans complaining about politics appeals to our collective social media experience, McRaven precedes the story with a truly troubling phrase: “The America that they believed in was under attack, not from without, but from within.”
Read that sentence again.
Now, recall what I said about admirals understanding the impact of their words, the force of their pronouncements, the regard in which we, their shipmates and subordinates, view them. Then consider this phrase, from the military’s oath of enlistment: “I solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic.”
Certainly, the admiral is not using the words: “America,” “attack,” and “within” in such a way as to imply that the President of the United States is a domestic enemy of the Constitution? Standby shipmates:
“These men and women, of all political persuasions, have seen the assaults on our institutions: on the intelligence and law enforcement community, the State Department and the press. They have seen our leaders stand beside despots and strongmen, preferring their government narrative to our own. They have seen us abandon our allies and have heard the shouts of betrayal from the battlefield.”
McRaven is saying that these actions constitute a domestic threat to the United States of America. Or is he?
I am certain, that should McRaven read this piece, he will strenuously object to my characterization of this passage. He is merely expressing his God-given right to voice his political opinions freely, and that is absolutely true. But I have written before about why I believe military officers should use special care in making political pronouncements. There are valid points on each side of the debate, but language like this, in which two retired military officers decry the Commander in Chief as a threat to the republic (it’s in the title, which I’m sure we will be told was written by an editor and not McRaven himself).
But McRaven closes with the following, which left me incredulous: “[It] is time for a new person in the Oval Office—Republican, Democrat or independent—the sooner, the better. The fate of our Republic depends upon it.” [emphasis added]
A retired admiral literally called for a new person in the Oval Office, “the sooner the better”! That is inexcusable. He did not call for impeachment efforts by Congress, defeat at the ballot box, or some political pressure on the President to resign, he simply said we need someone new in the White House, ASAP. What are you trying to say, admiral?
From Rome, to France, to strings of democracies across history and the developing world, Republics have been felled by tyrants. Those tyrants have almost universally claimed to be protectors of the very institutions they overthrew. Caesar, Napoleon, and countless others share another troubling characteristic: they were military leaders with immense personal appeal, who used their rhetoric to rally the military to their side.
A wise admiral should know better than to carelessly bandy about such talk.
