There has been a great deal of press of late regarding the ad several former military members of congress recently released which, in part, stated that military personnel should refuse unlawful orders.

Having served in the military with the Air Force I remember taking such an oath when I first arrived in San Antonio for basic training. I took that oath to heart.

The year I went in was 1970 when the Vietnam War was still going on. I really didn’t want to serve as I was recently married and my wife was pregnant with our first child.

I actually should not have had to serve as I had recently suffered a bout with pleurisy and as such should have received a three-year deferment. Yet when I went to visit my doctor in North Carolina so he could give me a report to give to my draft board he refused saying “my son recently died while serving in Vietnam and there is no way I’m going to let some no-account Yankee (I grew up in NY) hippie (I really wasn’t one) get out of serving”. He then tore-up my medical records and threw them in the trash.

Not long afterwards my draft board in NY was burned and knowing I had a low draft number and coming from a small town I figured I would soon receive my orders. As such I ran down to the closest Air Force recruiting station and signed up. I was fortunate I had done so because several days later i received my draft notice.

When I went for my physical, I noticed that those who had not singed up for either the AF, Navy or Coast Guard were alternately placed in line for either the Army or Marines.

I’m glad I was not forced to serve in either one of those branches as I knew that should I have to shoot another human being I would never be able to live with it. One thing I was certain of was that had they asked me to kill innocent civilians as so many were asked to do, something that should be considered an unlawful order, I would have refused to do so. I am certain if I had I most likely would have been either shot, court-martialed or given a dishonorable discharge for having refused.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to make that choice like so many others were forced to.

Sadly, of late many military personnel, ICE agents and Border Control agents have seemingly been asked to follow orders that appear to be unlawful. Whether it be bombing boats and killing individuals where it isn’t even certain if they are smuggling drugs and without due process, abducting immigrants and even US citizens off of the streets due largely to their nationality, detaining them and often deporting them without due process there seems to be no push back and refusal which there should be.

After all, we are talking about our fellow human beings who deserve, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness like all people of God and our country.

This brings me to the Statue of Liberty part of my story as it appears to me to relate to the above.

I recently, for the who know how many times, watched the movie Ghostbusters II. In order to get the citizens of New York City to find their positive spirit the Ghostbusters needed a symbol of all that is good to help defeat the evil Vigo the Carpathian.

They chose the Statue of Liberty as that symbol of which the motto is, “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free. The wretched refuse to your teeming shores. Send these the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. Lift my lamp beside the golden door”.

It seems like we have somehow forgotten this motto that throughout our history has brought to our country immigrants for every land who helped make this country great.

Hopefully we can recapture that welcoming feeling or we are going to lose ourselves in the process and won’t be the country we should be which has been a beacon to the world which so many respected and wanted to be a part of.

Thanks for checking in this week. Paul (the nonconformist)