Letter: Alaska soldiers should refuse if Trump orders them to Minnesota

If President Trump orders units from the 11th Airborne Division, based at Ft. Wainwright, to deploy to Minnesota, the soldiers and officers — to a person and/or by unit — would best serve their country by refusing to obey this probably "illegal" order, as discussed recently in a video by five veterans now serving in Congress.

Such disobedience might become an important turning point in our country's dangerous, rapid, and sad descent into totalitarianism at the hands of our unwell president and his sycophant advisors — by the 11th Division's inspiring Congress and the Supreme Court to finally discover their principles and responsibilities to promptly and robustly "check and balance" the executive.

Such disobedience by on-duty U.S. Army soldiers and officers would probably be at great short-term cost to them — courts martial and dishonorable discharge — but at long-term advantage in boosting their personal pride and dignity, and in their prospects for post-Army careers — and in defending our country. Their bravery will be widely admired by their fellow citizens; job offers will be good. Most expeditious would probably be for the unit COs to refuse deployment orders, encouraging their soldiers to quickly follow their examples as those COs are replaced. 

Soldiers, please thus honor our country's founders, struggling and dying in the eight-plus years of the American Revolution, as Ken Burns tells us on PBS, to prevent exactly the abuse of power Alaska-based men and women may soon be ordered to commit. Thank you for your service, perhaps in a way you didn't imagine when you signed up.

William C. Leighty

Juneau