I spent 30 years in the military. Trump should be as far away from U.S. armed forces as possible

In October 1973, four days after President Richard Nixon ordered the firing of the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal, America’s global nuclear alert level was raised to DEFCON III — one step short of imminent nuclear war. That raising of the alert level was ostensibly a response to the then-Soviet Union announcing fresh support for Egypt during the Yom Kippur War, which was then going on.

I was a second lieutenant on West Germany’s border with what was then East Germany, and my battalion received orders to load our conventional and nuclear wartime ammunition and prepare for a potential war that could have resulted in global annihilation. Was the decision to go to  DEFCON III driven by national security concerns? Or was it the Nixon White House’s attempt to distract the public from his scandal-plagued presidency?

As we prepare for Tuesday’s election, it's important to remember that we’re not just electing a president, but we are also electing the commander in chief of our armed forces. And we need one we can trust to not use the military inappropriately.

At an Oct. 24, 1973, meeting in the Situation Room, Adm. Thomas Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recorded in his diary Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s remarks that “the Soviets were influenced by the current situation the President finds himself in,” that the Democrats and U.S. public were “laying siege  to their government” and that “we must prevent them from getting away with this.” In private interviews I had with four Nixon officials, including three who were in the Situation Room that night, Nixon felt that he needed to make the news about something other than Watergate.

Remembering how close Nixon brought us to nuclear war is why I say we cannot trust Donald Trump with the presidency. I don’t think he’d hesitate to use his position as commander in chief for his personal and political benefit. We know this because he has promoted policies that threaten our military, democracy and those who call the United States home.

Multiple times in the past month alone, Trump has said he’d use the military against citizens opposed to his candidacy and he has reshared social media posts that suggest bringing his adversaries, including former President Barack Obama and former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, before military tribunals. He has repeatedly declared that the country’s biggest threat is from his political opponents, whom he has labeled “the enemy from within.”

The thought of Trump exacting retribution by politicizing the American military should terrify us all. It is antithetical to the principles that underpin our democracy, and his plans to do just that should disqualify him from entering the White House again.

The former president has repeatedly insisted that millions of undocumented immigrants must be rounded up and deported. Such a mammoth operation would require the American military, which Trump has promised to use. Imagine using American soldiers to round up, house, guard, transport and deport millions of immigrants. They would be knocking on the doors, searching for anyone who might be undocumented and placing them in camps.

He has also said he would consider using the military for domestic law enforcement in major cities without the involvement of local mayors or governors. These are all policies reminiscent of Nazi Germany, not the United States. 

Because Trump has promised to “weed out military officers” ideologically opposed to him, military officers in the future might be promoted or assigned based solely on party affiliation. The members of our professional military swear an oath to the Constitution, but Trump appears to believe they should pledge a loyalty oath to him.

Trump would be unrestrained during a second term. He’d surround himself with sycophants selected for their total loyalty — not their expertise or their willingness to speak hard truths. The absence of officials willing to “speak truth to power” could be disastrous during a major crisis.  

If Trump follows through with his plans to politicize the military and turn it against the American people, I fear we could witness a mass resignation of senior officers who find such orders contrary to their oath to support the Constitution, and chaos might follow in the ranks at a time of rising global conflicts. Going forward, there might even be massive turnover in the officer corps depending on which political party wins a future election.

This wouldn’t be a professional military focused on the defense of the nation, but a politicized one in which the American people would likely lose trust. And I wouldn’t blame them because, if Trump follows through with his threat, then that military would no longer exist to protect them — it would be a force used to threaten them.

My three-decade military career was defined by continuous training, numerous operations, wars, strategic arms control negotiations and the study of civil-military relations. All these experiences, but especially my study of our civilian government’s relationship with the American military, contributed to my conclusion that Trump is unfit to be president.

Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he has no respect for the historic relationship between America’s military and civilian leadership — or for honor, duty, service and sacrifice — and his policies will not only erode Americans’ trust in the military, but also put our democracy at the brink of disaster.

Our system of civil-military relations is essential to our military’s professionalism.  The members of our military take an oath to the Constitution — not a military or political leader. This was fundamental to me when I was a young lieutenant in West Germany, commanding troops in combat in Iraq, serving in senior positions in the Pentagon and the White House or teaching the subject to students at West Point, the Naval Academy and the Army War College.

The relationship between America’s civilian and military leadership rests on an implicit “contract” requiring mutual respect, trust, and consultation. The military accepts the final authority of civilian leadership but in return seeks to remain apolitical. Why would we give up something that has served our democracy so well for someone who has served our nation so poorly?

I fear that if we abandon this basic tenet of our democracy, my service and that of other veterans will have been in vain.

Who Will Sound the Call to Service?

A soldier's day was once regulated by bugle calls, from morning reveille to chow call at noon to retreat at sunset and taps late at night. Thus the phrase "to answer the bugle call" has been used to describe citizens responding to a national threat. Those who rise to this call to defend their country are the young, and they sacrifice accordingly.

We witnessed this during World War II with my father's generation. We heard it clearly in the words of John F. Kennedy, who told us to ask not what our country can do for us but what we can do for our country. But we've also witnessed serious divisions.

Our nation has been in a state of war for nearly six years. American forces have been in Iraq for more than four years, a longer commitment than during World War II. A new generation has risen to defend us once again, but strangely this time there has been no bugle call. No leader has made a broad appeal for service in a time of need, and no real request has been made for most Americans to sacrifice in any way. Most of us go about our daily lives unaffected by the trauma and tragedy that occur daily in Iraq and Afghanistan, whether we support the war or oppose it.

But some heard a call and answered. I met a number of them as I traveled to Balad, Iraq, with an air-medical team from Mississippi and California to pick up wounded GIs and Marines and ferry them to the Landstuhl military hospital in Germany and then on to Walter Reed. I met not only these injured but the many others from this generation -- doctors, nurses, pilots, air crews -- who tended to their needs along the way home. These caregivers are unsung heroes, and they treasure the brotherhood they share with their injured comrades. They perform countless acts of kindness and healing to little public acclaim.

All these men and women are truly extraordinary -- the injured and those who care for them. They represent all of America in a mosaic of old and young, male and female, Hispanic, black, Asian, white.

They include a young Minnesota National Guardsman wounded after 14 months in Iraq. His unit had been scheduled to head home but was extended to 15 months. He is 21. Last month he lost both his legs to an explosively formed projectile.

He has a right to be bitter, but he isn't. Two days after his personal tragedy he laughed with me in the hospital and said that when he was hurt he told his sergeant, "I guess this means I won't have to take that PT test you scheduled for me." He did that to keep up the morale of his buddies as they applied the tourniquets that saved his life.

I talked to an intensive care nurse who has been handling severely wounded people for more than five years. As the senior nurse, she stayed with those diagnosed as terminal. She did not want them to die alone, and she placed a personal note with their effects so their families would know that they hadn't.

There was a soldier who had been blown from his tank by an improvised explosive device that broke his back. He was 37 and had recently joined the active Army. He continued to smile as he lay on a pillowcase decorated with scenes from "Superman" and talked about his buddies. He told me that he was sure that his kids were proud of him.

A trauma surgeon who has been operating and saving lives in Afghanistan and Iraq and at the hospital in Germany since the war began told me how he kept his morale so high: by keeping in mind always that he cared for heroes every day.

This account is not pro-war or anti-war. It is simply about war and the terrible tragedy that it is. The people I had the privilege to meet had several things in common. They all believed they had responded to the bugle call, no matter how faint. None spoke of politics or party. They came even though they did not have to -- no one really asked them to -- and they represent but a small fraction of their generation.

They have served, suffered, sacrificed and endured. America marks a number of patriotic moments at the onset of summer -- Memorial Day, D-Day, the Fourth of July. I hope most of us take time on these days to reflect on those past and present who have sacrificed. Sadly, this reflection should also remind us that this long twilight struggle will continue no matter how the Iraq war turns in the coming months.

If we are to survive as a nation with our values intact, then we must find leaders willing to make the call. Leaders who will call us to serve each other, to serve in our towns and cities, churches and schools and, if needed, in the military -- leaders who will urge us to care for these young veterans and their families in need of our help for many years to come.

This coming together to meet a challenge has always been one of our nation's greatest strengths, and we need that strength now.