Those who serve owe allegiance to the Constitution, not a person

As a vet­er­an of the United States Marine Corps, I was deeply sad­dened to see on nation­al news that three active-duty Marines have been charged with par­tic­i­pat­ing in the January 6^th assault on the nation’s Capitol.

It was equal­ly sad­den­ing to dis­cov­er that about 120 of the 900 indi­vid­u­als thus far charged in that assault are either active-duty or vet­er­an mil­i­tary personnel.

With this infor­ma­tion, it is dif­fi­cult to rec­on­cile the val­ues instilled in mem­bers of our mil­i­tary, which can be so eas­i­ly shunt­ed aside to per­mit such conduct.

I can­not remem­ber the exact words of the oath I took so many years ago as I was sworn into mil­i­tary ser­vice, but I imag­ine my words were very sim­i­lar — per­haps exact­ly the same — to the ones uttered by those enter­ing mil­i­tary ser­vice today: “I, ____________________, do solemn­ly swear (or affirm) that I will sup­port and defend the Constitution of the United States against all ene­mies, for­eign and domes­tic; that I will bear true faith and alle­giance to the same...”

Perhaps it is past time for an extend­ed study course on the Constitution to become a stan­dard pro­ce­dure for all mil­i­tary per­son­nel — as well as for those enter­ing into local and state police forces — to immerse them in what it means to swear alle­giance to an idea, a tenet, rather than to an individual. 

The words of the oath seem unequiv­o­cal, and there should be lit­tle doubt that the horde that besieged the Capitol on January 6^th, 2021, was a domes­tic ene­my attempt­ing to over­throw the very essence of the Constitution.

The three Marines who are cur­rent­ly being charged may or may not be found not guilty by a civil­ian court. But they may very well face pun­ish­ment under the aus­pices of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and, at a min­i­mum, could be dis­hon­or­ably dis­charged from the ser­vice — a stain that will fol­low them for the rest of their lives.

It has been not­ed that some of those par­tic­i­pat­ing on January 6^th were also mem­bers of civil­ian police forces from across America, and those indi­vid­u­als also swear alle­giance to uphold­ing the Constitution.

Why has this breach of trust and faith happened?

Perhaps one of the rea­sons is that so few indi­vid­u­als are aware of what is embod­ied in our Constitution and the sac­ri­fices of their fore­bears over a span of 200 years to main­tain it as a vital part of what makes America the coun­try it is.

Perhaps it is past time for an extend­ed study course on the Constitution to become a stan­dard pro­ce­dure for all mil­i­tary per­son­nel — as well as for those enter­ing into local and state police forces — to immerse them in what it means to swear alle­giance to an idea, a tenet, rather than to an indi­vid­ual.  Perhaps it’s time to reveal to them what hap­pens to a coun­try when its cit­i­zens pledge an oath to an indi­vid­ual, as Germans were required to do before and dur­ing World War II.  Apparently, many of those assault­ing the Capitol felt that their alle­giance lay with the for­mer pres­i­dent rather than with their country.

I doubt that the words of the oath I took real­ly sank in to me as I uttered them, and, look­ing back on it now, I can see that class­es on the Constitution dur­ing my for­ma­tive train­ing would have been immense­ly valu­able in help­ing me under­stand the import of my oath.

If these three Marines are found guilty in civ­il court, they will undoubt­ed­ly be dis­charged.  They will no longer have avail­able to them any vet­er­an ser­vices, and the stain of con­vic­tion will alter their lives for­ev­er after.

And that is so ter­ri­bly sad.