To Protect and Defend

Dear G.I. Joe:

Somewhere along the line somebody created one of those unwritten rules. The value of unwritten rules is that because they are unwritten, they often go unchallenged. I'm going to challenge this one. The rule is that while we are free to debate the merits of going to war as a nation, once the war begins, we are to at best rally 'round the flag, at least keep our mouths shut until the shooting stops. Why? Who says? How much more important is it for us to seek to create a consensus when mother's sons are actually dying, than before they start dying?

As I write you are at war. While everyone is debating the wisdom of sending in ground troops, precious little is being said about the war itself. This rule may be the fruit of the ugliness of the Vietnam War. No doubt most of those who expectorated on returning veterans now remember such with shame. And so we think that questioning politicians now, somehow might damage your morale. As brave fighting men they say that yours is not to reason why, but to bleed and die.

I think not. While it is true that we should not treat Vietnam vets as if they are savages bent on destruction, neither should we treat them like children who can't be blamed for obeying idiotic parents. Whether it be in Vietnam or in Kosovo, those of you doing the shooting, and being shot at are not being obedient children but rather lawless adults. Rather than bravely going forth to sacrifice yourselves for something more valuable than life, you are taking the coward's way out from your covenantal responsibilities.

The authority who stands over you, you see, is not the Commander-in-Chief. When you were inducted into the armed forces you took a solemn vow to protect and defend not us, not the army, not the government, not women and children, certainly not the suffering people of South Vietnam, occupied Kuwait, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, or Kosovo. The vow is to protect and defend the Constitution of these United States.

So how does one defend a legal document? Does this mean that all of you should be stationed outside the National Archives? One defends the Constitution first by obeying it. And the Constitution says, in no uncertain terms, that only the Congress has the power to declare war. Congress has not done so. While it is true that the Commander-in-chief is a postmodernist one, while he may think that he can define is, and war, and sexual relations however he pleases, when you have men in uniform dropping bombs on other men in uniform, you have war. And when you have this without a congressional declaration of war, you have in illegal war, but a war nonetheless.

It takes courage in the midst of a nation of jingoists, a nation that enjoys every now and again getting out its expensive toys and seeing what they can do, to just say no. A courageous man is not one who climbs into a fighter plane knowing that there are machines on the ground designed to bring him down, but one who is willing to face the far more mundane challenge of serving a life sentence in Leavenworth for the crime of keeping ones vows.

Real courage includes the capacity to not only face a future wherein there will be no ticker tape parades, but a future in which one will be considered a coward, where one will be spat upon for not fighting in other people's civil wars. "Brave" fighter pilots get all the chicks. "Cowards" who will not serve are accused of being women.

Men with the courage to not fight have served in the military. Michael New, a home schooler who enlisted to serve his country, found himself called into the service of the United Nations. Mr. New refused to don the UN insignia his commanding officers asked him to wear, and has been rewarded with a court martial. He knew what he had vowed, and he refused to break that vow. His commanding officers took a vow to defend the Constitution, and quietly, and with hardly a whimper from so called conservatives, nor from his brothers in arms, turned it into a vow to defend the New World Order. Welcome to the Empire.

In Nuremberg we scoffed at the excuses made by the Nazi's, that they were just following orders. And yet when the table is turned, when we become the storm troopers taking the bridge to the 21st century, we keep our own mouths shut, all because our patriotism has turned into mere parrotism. If the Neo-nazis, or rather the neo-cons down at the Weekly Standard say go to war, well then that must be what we should do. If the Wall Street journal is behind it, then it must be good for the stock market, and anything good for the stock market is what we're for.

It is a brave and courageous thing to die in defense of one's country. I'm no pacifist. Were our beaches stormed, I'd be standing right beside you. But it is a tragic thing to die for the political maneuverings of another. (And if you doubt this is the case, ask yourself, who is guilty of greater crimes against humanity, the thugs in Yugoslavia, or our friends and trading partners in Red China?) It is more tragic still to be led like a lamb to the slaughter, saluting the emperor who has signed your death warrant.

If the cowed members of Congress will not put a stop to this war, if they will not defend the Constitution they swore to uphold, (and they have not long ago once bravely followed the polls and refused to do so) it is up to the soldiers. You must have the courage to stop fighting, to turn and face the fascists behind you, and tell them no. You need to have the courage to not follow.

In the King's Service,

R.C. Sproul Jr.