From xxxxxx <[email protected]>
Subject As Trump Threatens to Send Military Into Cities, Some GIs Refuse to Comply
Date June 9, 2020 12:05 AM
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[“Most of all, I feel that I cannot be complicit in any way when
I’ve seen so many examples of soldiers and police acting in bad
faith,” he said via an encrypted text message.]
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AS TRUMP THREATENS TO SEND MILITARY INTO CITIES, SOME GIS REFUSE TO
COMPLY  
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Candice Bernd
June 3, 2020
Truthout
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_ “Most of all, I feel that I cannot be complicit in any way when
I’ve seen so many examples of soldiers and police acting in bad
faith,” he said via an encrypted text message. _

National Guardsmen block off Sunset Blvd during a Black Lives Matter
protest on June 2, 2020, in Los Angeles, California., Al Seib/Los
Angeles Times via Getty Image

 

Some National Guard and active-duty GIs are refusing to deploy to U.S.
cities rising up against police-perpetrated killings, saying no to
complicity in the repression of the American populace and that they
have not been properly trained in riot response or de-escalation
tactics on domestic soil.

Veterans and GI rights organizations told _Truthout _that dozens of
GIs are reaching out to assess their options as President Trump orders
military and federal police onto the streets of Washington, D.C., and
threatens to use the 1807 Insurrection Act to send active-duty
military into cities across the U.S. if governors cannot repress
dissent in their states.

The National Guard has already mobilized 20,000 members in at least 29
states [[link removed]], and some
governors, including Minnesota’s Tim Walz, have already declined
Trump’s offer to send in military police. Trump has the authority,
however, to deploy the military to states under the Insurrection Act,
which would represent a dramatic escalation of Trump’s executive
authority and likely spark pushback from state and local officials.

While the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibits the domestic use of
military for law enforcement purposes without specific congressional
authorization, the Insurrection Act gives the president authorization
to do so under certain circumstances, according to legal experts
[[link removed]].
The Insurrection Act has been invoked dozens of times in the
country’s history, most recently during the 1992 uprising over the
Los Angeles police officers’ beating of Rodney King.

But it’s not the legality of the president’s and governors’
deployment orders that is weighing on Guardspersons and active-duty
soldiers; it’s the potential moral injury of brutalizing their own
communities.

One activated National Guard member who is currently in the process of
refusing orders told _Truthout_ that the events of the last few days
have shattered his belief that there can be such a thing as a
justified use of force. “Most of all, I feel that I cannot be
complicit in any way when I’ve seen so many examples of soldiers and
police acting in bad faith,” he said via an encrypted text message.

The Guardsman, who is consulting a lawyer, spoke to _Truthout_ on the
condition of anonymity to protect against further retaliation for his
defection and for speaking to the press. He is relatively new to his
unit, having recently graduated training, and says he enlisted in part
due to his financial situation.

“I cannot be complicit in any way when I’ve seen so many examples
of soldiers and police acting in bad faith.”

His unit, he says, has not received any relevant riot response or
de-escalation training amid the rapid pace of the unit’s deployment
operations. “I learned basic soldiering and rifle skills in Basic
Combat Training, and my trainee Military Occupational Specialty is not
related to policing or riot response in any way,” he said. “No
aspect of my training has touched on this subject. I am told that my
unit has conducted riot response periodically in the past. We have not
had any training or conversation relating to de-escalation tactics.”

Another Guardsman, a medic in an infantry line company in Pennsylvania
who has not yet received orders to deploy, says he plans on refusing
if it comes to that and is also currently consulting a lawyer
regarding his options.

“I can’t do it. Even looking at my uniform is making me feel sick
that I’m associated with this, especially after [the National Guard
unit] shot that man
[[link removed]]
who owned that barbecue shop [in Louisville, Kentucky],” he said.
“I live in Pennsylvania. I live with the history of Kent State.
I’m not being a part of that.”

“I can’t do it. Even looking at my uniform is making me feel sick
that I’m associated with this.”

The Pennsylvania Guardsman is also relatively new, he says; he began
basic training in late 2016 and has never deployed. He enlisted
because he felt he needed “a sense of purpose, some kind of
direction” in life and because he comes from a military family. He
originally hoped to join medical missions assisting in natural
disasters.

He also hasn’t been trained for a domestic riot response scenario
but says his unit would likely receive “some kind of slap-dash
training” if it were called to deploy because of the situation’s
time sensitivity.

Should they refuse orders to deploy, what consequences might soldiers
face? Siri Margerin, a counselor with the GI Rights Hotline
[[link removed]], heavily emphasized that there are
still a lot of unknowns in regard to how command structures may punish
troops who resist, including those who publicly refuse to obey orders,
don’t show up to their armories, or deploy but quietly hold their
fire.

“We don’t know, because this hasn’t happened in a very long
time, and it has never happened with a president like we have right
now,” Margerin said.

The GI Rights Network is organizing emergency conscientious objector
packets for troops who may have only a matter of hours before they are
scheduled to ship out, after orders are given. “Once they have [the
conscientious objector packet] in, they should have the right to say
that they can turn up at their mobilization point, but they cannot
carry a weapon,” Margerin says.

Depending on commanding officers’ tolerance levels, Margerin says
troops could face more serious charges ranging from desertion, absent
without leave (AWOL) and misconduct charges to less serious
consequences, such as separation from the Army with an
other-than-honorable discharge. It’s also possible, however, that
troops may not be charged at all. In any case, they most certainly
risk hostile reactions from their commanders and fellow soldiers.

“Once they have [the conscientious objector packet] in, they should
have the right to say that they can turn up at their mobilization
point, but they cannot carry a weapon.”

“People have not been charged with desertion routinely, but that
could happen. They could certainly be charged with AWOL. If they’re
charged with desertion, that is likely a court martial, and that could
certainly mean some severe punishment,” like a dishonorable
discharge, Margerin says. “Typically, when people don’t show up
where they’re expected to be, they get an other-than-honorable
discharge,” she says, again underlining that “that was before now,
and now is very different, so we really don’t know.”

Margerin has already fielded a number of emotional calls this week
from troops in tears, and says the hotline has received roughly 30
calls in the last five days, mostly consisting of Guard members with
questions regarding the consequences for not showing up to their
armories. The hotline has received a couple of calls from active-duty
soldiers at Fort Bragg in North Carolina who have been mobilized.

Margerin says she’s also receiving inquiries from friends and
associates outside the hotline whose relatives are facing the question
of whether to deploy to American streets. “The individual soldier
has to really decide what their tolerance level is and what their
purpose is in [resisting orders],” she says. “There’s a lot of
capacity for moral trauma in this and for people to end up doing
things that they couldn’t live with if they did do.”

“There’s a lot of capacity for moral trauma in this and for people
to end up doing things that they couldn’t live with if they did
do.”

Guardspeople and active-duty soldiers face starkly different questions
and challenges in terms of resisting orders. The Pennsylvania
Guardsman, for instance, doesn’t fall under the Uniform Code of
Military Justice unless he comes under federal orders. Until then, he
remains under the purview of the state of Pennsylvania. Still,
Margerin says, it’s complicated, because if the president orders the
state’s governor to mobilize troops, he will become federally
activated while still under the purview of state law.

“Those are different things, and it really is all about who would be
punishing them, who would be making those judgments and who would be
paying for it,” Margerin says. “So that’s where they’re going
to be drawing lines about exactly who’s responsible for whom.”

Other left-leaning, antiwar veteran’s organizations are receiving an
influx of inquiries. About Face: Veterans Against the War recently
penned an open letter
[[link removed]]
asking activated troops to stand down for Black lives. Since the
letter was published, About Face Organizing Director Brittany DeBarros
says more than 300 veterans have signed on, and that the organization
has received several responses from National Guard members and
active-duty troops.

Troops are now occupying American communities, and are faced with a
choice about whether to take actions that could haunt them for the
rest of their lives.

Veterans for Peace Executive Director Garett Reppenhagen, a former
Army Cavalry scout, says the organization is likewise receiving an
influx of inquiries right now. He personally spoke with an activated
National Guard member who didn’t show up to his armory Tuesday
morning and to another active-duty Army soldier who doesn’t have
current orders but is fielding options.

“It’s a very emergent, messy situation,” says About Face’s
DeBarros, a former Army Reserve captain who was investigated
[[link removed]]
by the Army for her criticisms of the military on social media,
including her support for Colin Kaepernick’s stand against
police-perpetrated violence. She says units’ last-minute riot
response training “has a lot of people who maybe even aren’t
politicized, or haven’t thought a lot about their service, just
saying the kind of obvious, which is, ‘This is really
dangerous.’”

DeBarros told _Truthout_ she is receiving reports of troops being
handed rules of engagement and somewhat less-than-lethal weapons that
they’ve never been trained to use. “Those of us who have
experience and training with less-than-lethal weapons know that all of
those different weapons systems have distances that can make them
lethal, and [troops] need to know those things and be trained on those
things.”

Other units are moving so fast that some troops are reporting
confusion regarding command structures and being deployed onto
American streets without any kind of briefing regarding rules of
engagement.

However, the Guardsmen say that many of their fellow soldiers are
enthusiastic about deploying domestically, with some newer soldiers
eager to get their first “stripes.” DeBarros has seen it before,
saying that officers are not thinking soberly and thoughtfully
“about the potential moral injury this could create, especially when
you’re being asked to look your neighbors in the eye and point a
weapon at them.”

“A few people seem to be wrestling with their conscience, but they
are quiet about it because there is some risk.”

Still, others are also expressing hesitation and reticence against
turning on their own communities, even if they aren’t quite planning
to refuse orders. “A few people seem to be wrestling with their
conscience, but they are quiet about it because there is some risk
involved with voicing that,” says the activated Guardsman about some
officers in his unit.

Reppenhagen and DeBarros say that what is happening domestically is
directly linked to the systemic oppression that has fueled the
nation’s founding, as well as its expansionary imperialist hegemony
abroad.

DeBarros says it’s not exactly that the war on terror is coming
home, but that “it’s really more of a circle in that the war as we
know it has come home _again,_ we might say. Not only do we have these
same institutions that have been used to oppress poor folks, Black
folks, Brown folks, Indigenous folks since the founding of the
country, but now we have them becoming more and more militarized.”

“People who stay in need to very much think about what side of
history they want to be on. They really need to sit down and think
about what they’re willing to do for an oath that means trampling on
their neighbors.”

Reppenhagen adds that when an “armed occupation comes to any place
in the world, it invites violent resistance against it because people
don’t like to see an oppressive force in their community and will do
almost anything to get rid of it because of the humiliation and the
threat that it presents.”

Troops are now occupying American communities, and are faced with a
choice about whether they want to stoke more violence and take actions
that could haunt them for the rest of their lives.

“I can say from experience that the moral cost, the cost to your
soul of following an order that you wish that you hadn’t, is far
greater and far more sustained than whatever the military can do to
you in the short run,” DeBarros said.

The Guardsman in Pennsylvania also cautioned his fellow soldiers to
think twice before deploying. “In this moment, the people who stay
in need to very much think about what side of history they want to be
on,” he said. “They really need to sit down and think about what
they’re willing to do for an oath that means trampling on their
neighbors.”

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Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
Reprinted with permission.

 

_Candice Bernd [[link removed]] is senior editor/staff
reporter at Truthout. Her work has also appeared in several other
publications, including The Nation, In These Times, the Texas
Observer, Salon, Rewire.News, Sludge, YES! Magazine and Earth Island
Journal. Her work has received awards from the San Francisco Press
Club, the Fort Worth chapter of Society of Professional Journalists,
the Native American Journalists Association, and the Dallas Peace and
Justice Center. Follow her on Twitter: @CandiceBernd
[[link removed]]._

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