All those of us who took up military service under the US flag took an oath which most of us have engraved on our souls.
In the context of last week's attack on the US Capitol, the question of the status of; active duty soldiers, reservists, former military and military retirees has come up in the press.
Many of us think that our oath is sacramental, i.e., spiritual in meaning and that it is indelible and eternal. You may feel that to be true but that belief is not legally true.
In the course of my 30 year enlisted and officer service and then 8 years as a DoD SES I had occasion to discuss the oath with many JAG officers and General Counsels. This came up repeatedly because of a need to determine what the continuing obligations of people were.
In fact, the oath is contractual rather than sacramental.
If you are "discharged" or "dismissed" (officers) from the service you are no longer bound by your oath. Your service has legally ended. OTOH if you are "retired" from the military whether officer or enlisted you remain a member of the military and are still bound by your oath. pl
Colonel: The Military Times describes Lt. Col. Brock as a retired USAF officer.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2021/01/09/insurrectionist-zip-tie-guy-identified-as-retired-air-force-lieutenant-colonel/
Posted by: Chuck Light | 17 January 2021 at 01:45 PM
Chuck Light,
"Fred claims" Now with disclaimers. It grieves me greatly that the twitter account, which I quoted, that linked to the DOJ was not linked properly placed in a reply on a blog post. Here it is:
https://twitter.com/amuse/status/1349865669383356419?s=21
"...in addition to being banished from Black Lives Matters.... "
So he was banished from BLM; does that mean he no longer supports them? Is there a disavowal of his out there somewhere?
Here's another indepth analysis of the accused:
https://mobile.twitter.com/L0m3z/status/1350151048996941824
Completely unrelated evaluation of protests past and to come:
https://mobile.twitter.com/chan_rst/status/1349151809026228225
Posted by: Fred | 17 January 2021 at 06:08 PM
Fred: The fact that you rely on Twitter as your source for information says a whole lot about you, and very little about the information.
Posted by: Chuck Light | 18 January 2021 at 02:40 PM