Anti-Trump celebration at D.C. bar comes to screeching halt, pics of the glum scene are...

He has been a leaker/colluder for more than 4 1/2 years.

Sgt Bob Leonard -
We do not owe loyalty to a man, but to the office that man or woman holds. I owed loyalty to the President and officers appointed above me as do you and every other soldier, Marine, sailor and airman. YOU were the one making the statement, "not okay to think he should concurrently be "loyal" to the POTUS". IF you actually read my comment, and not jump to conclusions, and it may be my fault as sometime my passion for some issues makes me think faster than I type, but my question of Duty, Honor and Loyalty was simply that a question? I do not know if the Air Force stresses 'Air Force Values'? I do know the Army codifies these values and stress them to all those serving in this branch of service. If you were not aware of this, Google 'Army Values'? I got nothing when I did the same search for 'Air Force values'.
Yes, our service was different, but that does not matter we both served, and thank you for your service, and like Comey, we took an oath because we elected to serve. We did not even have a choice to resign if we thought we could not be loyal to the current Commander and Chief?

MSG Brad Sand -
"Integrity First
Service before self
Excellence in all we do

These are the Air Force Core Values."

http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-070906-003.pdf



I googled "air force ..." . Before I typed in "values", google defaulted to "air force core values", and linked me to the above USAF publication. And it doesn't surprise me that it came up when I googled it but not when you did. I can google the same phrase on two different days, or on two different computers on the same day, and get an entirely different set or mix of hits.

I also looked up "oath of enlistment army" and "oath of enlistment usaf". They're identical (with one difference: the final phrase, "So help me God." is in parentheses in the USAF version, making it optional).

Our oaths are identical, but, as we've both acknowledged, our tasks are very different. When I went to Tech School, after Basic, way back in the last century, I remember SOMEONE at SOME point in time saying to a group of us, "You're not soldiers, you're technicians. A Soldier's job is to confront the enemy on the battlefield and neutralize them. Your job is to keep these aircraft in excellent operational condition so they can fly over the battlefield, rain destruction down onto the enemy and destroy them. A Soldier's job is to win the battle. Your job is to make the Soldier's job easier. Together, it's our job to win the war."

(Or words similar to that. Almost fifty years later I can't recite the exact wording, but I definitely remember the message.)

Which explains the difference in our Core Values. In combat, each man has to be able to rely on every other man in his unit/squad/patrol for victory and/or survival. That creates a bond that can't be created, I'm convinced, in any other way. In aircraft maintenance, I hardly ever thought about anyone else while doing my job because I very rarely encountered anyone else. Changing an altimeter doesn't require a squad, and it's very rarely life-threatening.

But I digress. (It's one of my favorite passtimes.) We were talking about loyalty...

As I read the Oath of Enlistment, I pledged to support and defend, and bear faith and allegiance to the Constitution. To the President and Officers over me, I promised to obey their orders according to regulations and the UCMJ, but I didn't promise or pledge allegiance or loyalty to the individual(s).

The best illustration I can think of is in the movie, "A Few Good Men". I think Col. Jessup's (Jack Nicholson), "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!" speech is one of the best descriptions of what it is and what it means to be an American Fighting man. It's a shame that some of its significance and power is lost by it being delivered by the "villian" of the movie. The illustration I'm thinking of is at the end, after Jessup has been arrested for giving an illegal order, and Downey and Dawson have been convicted of "conduct unbecoming".

Downey turns to Dawson and says, "Hal, what did we do wrong? The Col. gave the order for a Code Red, we obeyed it! What did we do wrong?" I can't recall, right now, what Dawson's exact words were (and my DVD is packed away right now, getting ready for a move, so I can't watch it to get those words), but as I remember them, he, in a rather dramatic way, said, "A member of our platoon is dead because the Col. gave an illegal order, and we obeyed it, even though we should have known better."

To me, that illustrates the difference between loyalty to a principle vs loyalty to a person. And, you make a very good point: after we took the Oath of Enlistment, we didn't have a choice to simply resign if things didn't go the way we thought they should. That's what makes Military Service, of whatever variety, different from any other job. It seems, at the end of the day, you're saying tomato and I'm saying tomahto; you spell it ketchup and I spell it catsup. But come this Fourth of July, I will eat a hot dog with all the fixin's in tribute to you and your service, and drink a toast of lemonade (which is all I can handle these days) in memory of those who have gone before.

Sgt Bob Leonard
Many thing in your last post I found disappointing. First, that you ignore what was said before about not loyalty to a person but to the position. Second, that anyone who is serving or has served would think they are correct in arguing that not in being loyal to the Constitution, the Commander in Chief and the officers appointed over them could ever be considered a good thing? YES, the person who is disloyal to the Constitution, our Nation and the people serving with them should be opposed and corrected, BUT that is not what we are talking about...or were not until we started using movie references? Last, I hope whomever told you airmen such hate filled blather was relieved and drummed out of the service when they said, "You're not soldiers, you're technicians. A Soldier's job is to confront the enemy on the battlefield and neutralize them. Your job is to keep these aircraft in excellent operational condition so they can fly over the battlefield, rain destruction down onto the enemy and destroy them. A Soldier's job is to win the battle. Your job is to make the Soldier's job easier. Together, it's our job to win the war." That person should have been bared from talking to any recruit. Yes, airmen are technicians first, like many in the Army and other services BUT every man and woman in uniform is in a uniform for a reason. IF it ever truly came to it, you were expected and required to take up a weapon and defend our Nation and Constitution.

MSG Brad Sand - MSG Brand, I'm sorry to be such a disappointment to you. In one way, I'm rather a disappointment to myself. At the end of my second post to this thread, I said, "Beyond that, I'm not getting into any spitting matches with anyone over who is more or less Loyal and Honorable.", and yet, here I am, posting response number four in a spitting match with a career Army man, no less.

I started this discussion by referencing your statement, "...asking for loyalty from the people serving in your Administration..." in light of the Oath of Office taken by the Director of the FBI. I pointed out that the Director's Oath has him (or her) "...swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States... that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same...". Nowhere in that Oath does he swear loyalty to the President. Nor does he swear loyalty to, "...the American people and the men and women he led..." His Oath is to "support, defend, bear true faith and allegiance" to the Constitution.

You said, "IF Director Comey felt he was not able to be loyal to the President he SERVED..." That's where you and I seem to digress. I'm of the conviction that the Director's Oath binds him, his loyalty, and his service to the Constitution, the Document and foundation upon which this Country exists and has existed for nearly 250 years. You seem to think that his loyalty should include loyalty to the President or "the Office of the President", unless and until such time as the President might do something illegal, even though there is nothing in the Director's Oath which says that.

Oath of Office: Director of the FBI;

“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;...
that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion;...
and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

No mention about loyalty to the President or "Office of the President". In fact, no mention of the Presidency at all. That's the whole point of the Oath, isn't it? Especially with regard to individuals in higher positions in our Government, they are sworn to be faithful and loyal to our founding principles as defined in our Constitution, which are much bigger than any single, elected individual. BY DESIGN AND WITH INTENT, the Founding Fathers took the absolute power that, until then, had rested with the King. They created, in principle, a Nation that would be under the Rule of Law, not crowned - or elected - individuals.

I submit that any argument to support the idea of loyalty to an individual rather than to the Constitution - or loyalty to an individual concurrent with loyalty to the Constitution - would have been (and, in fact, was) rejected by the Continental Congress.