Thread: Life in the Military today

Hmm. Further research below, I found the answers to the question I was really wondering about.

Jimi, Re knowledge of the Constitution and our guys knowledge thereof, I was actually more wondering about whether they know enough to recognize possibility they've received an illegal order or not and how they are expected to deal with an illegal order. I posted what I learned, down below. What I learned: Officers should certainly be more knowledgeable of the law and Constitution, since they have even greater responsibility than their guys and gals. There was a situation recently in Alabama (described below) where an officer issued an illegal order due to lack of knowledge of the law and Constitution. The order was obeyed. The officer is now being disciplined. Bet he knows the law and Constitution a lot better now than he did. Unfortunately he didn't know it well enough prior to issuing the order. Gap in military education for officers?

Officers are given training in what is legal and illegal in war and are requried to contradict an illegal order. Thus if a captain (commanding a company) gave an illegal order to a lieutenant (commanding a platoon), the lieutenant would be required to question the order.

If the intent is to ask about illegal orders, the lower enlisted are not given the training to know what is legal or illegal (except for some obvious ones), thus they aren't encouraged to consider the legality of their orders. That won't save them from prosecution, though (catch-22, yes).
The recruit must obey his immediate officer (the captin in this case). If the captin's superiors are upset, only the captin will get punished.
The only exception is when the command is clearly immoral. In that case the recruit will be punished even if he was ordered to commit the immoral act.

http://www.physicsforums.com/archive.../t-329163.html

On March 10, 2009, active duty Army military police troops from Fort Rucker were deployed to Samson, Alabama in response to a murder spree. Samson police officials confirmed the troops' presence, but it remains unclear who requested the troops and under what authority they were deployed. The governor of Alabama did not request military assistance and President Obama did not authorize their deployment. According to police officials, the soldiers were involved in traffic control and securing the crime scene.
An Army investigation found that soldiers should not have been sent to man traffic stops in a small Alabama town after 11 people were killed in March during a shooting spree.
An Army report released to The Associated Press on Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request said the decision to dispatch military police to Samson from nearby Fort Rucker broke the law. But an Army spokesman said no charges have been filed following the Aug. 10 report.
"As a result of the findings of the report, the Army took administrative action against at least one person," Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said.
The action was less than a transfer or discharge but Garver would not elaborate.
The report from the Department of Army Inspector General found the use of military personnel in Samson violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits federal troops from performing law enforcement actions. The names of those involved were redacted from the report.
The officer who made the decision to send the soldiers thought he had the authority based on his experience with responses to Hurricanes Katrina and Andrew, the report said.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2010095847_apussouthalabamashootings.html

Is the Posse Comitatus Act totally without meaning today? No, it remains a deterrent to prevent the unauthorized deployment of troops at the local level in response to what is purely a civilian law enforcement matter. Although no person has ever been successfully prosecuted under the act, it is available in criminal or administrative proceedings to punish a lower-level commander who uses military forces to pursue a common felon or to conduct sobriety checkpoints off of a federal military post. Officers have had their careers abruptly brought to a close by misusing federal military assets to support a purely civilian criminal matter.

http://www.homelandsecurity.org/jour...Trebilcock.htm

Originally Posted by alevin

... What I learned: Officers should certainly be more knowledgeable of the law and Constitution, since they have even greater responsibility than their guys and gals. There was a situation recently in Alabama (described below) where an officer issued an illegal order due to lack of knowledge of the law and Constitution. The order was obeyed. The officer is now being disciplined. Bet he knows the law and Constitution a lot better now than he did. Unfortunately he didn't know it well enough prior to issuing the order. Gap in military education for officers?....

Yes, you could see it that way. It wasn't a Constitutional prohibition. It was a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. Posse Comitatus was talked about briefly in my OCS training (1990). As a National Guard OCS candidate, we had a little different angle on it. National Guard is under State control normally, and under State Control, it is part of the duty to respond and secure areas under orders of the Governor. We learned that this changes when we were federalized, in that Posse Comitatus kicked in then, and prohibited use in rebellion/riot/etc when under federal control. In National Guard OCS, we spent a one-hour block on authorizing civil law enforcement control under orders of the Governor, and what changes when federalized.

In the case you cited- the order deploying the soldiers was legal, and had to be obeyed. Nothing wrong with a simple federal officer saying "Go there". The legal question comes after that- They get until trouble the moment they try and do traffic control- that's a civilian law enforcement action. Without order from the Govenor, using federal forces for traffic control would have been a violation of Posse Comitatus.

You might remember that there was a big discussion over that during the response to Katrina. Everybody was yelling for G.W. deploy federal forces into New Orleans. The problem was---what exactly did you want those federal forces to do? Rescue people? Ok. You can do that legally. But secure a block from looters? With active duty military? That would be illegal under Posse Comitatus.

I don't know if that is part of Federal pre-commissioning training today, but I presume it probably still is. It also has generally been included in "Major" level training courses (Army Command, Control Communication course CAS3), and senior Army War College classes for those chosen for Lt. Col. to Col. promotions. So I think the education inclusion is pretty robust. I think that was more likely probably just a case of one guy who screwed up, and responded without really thinking, or without getting his actions cleared from above.

There remain real problems with constitutionality, and with the Geneva conventions. I think that the former administration referred to the conventions as being "quaint" with respect to the modern insurgencies. However, that's not right either.

It's what happened at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Soldiers simply forgot what the Geneva convention dictated.
The military tribunals convicted the wrong people. The people who created the policy should have been punished. Schlessinger and Brown came out with some severe criticism for the former Secretary of Defense.

OK,

Here's one that will throw you for a loop.

Constitution studies for the military....
*Not required...They'll give you a copy on Constitution Day. Talk about certain aspects of it and play a video.

Laws of Armed Conflict
*This is a Computer Based Training (CBT) program that is required once a year and before deployment. Every soldier, Sailor, marine and airman are made to take this training and show some form of retention.

In my squadron, I took 45 minutes out of normal training for the day to cover the Constitution. I was amazed that my Hispanic airmen new more about the Constitution than most. It seems in their family, their parents had instilled upon them the rights that make up the country they were in. They knew what their country was versus their culture and still wanted to defend it.

Anyway, thought you'd like to know.

Originally Posted by James48843

Yes, you could see it that way. It wasn't a Constitutional prohibition. It was a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. Posse Comitatus was talked about briefly in my OCS training (1990). As a National Guard OCS candidate, we had a little different angle on it. National Guard is under State control normally, and under State Control, it is part of the duty to respond and secure areas under orders of the Governor. We learned that this changes when we were federalized, in that Posse Comitatus kicked in then, and prohibited use in rebellion/riot/etc when under federal control. In National Guard OCS, we spent a one-hour block on authorizing civil law enforcement control under orders of the Governor, and what changes when federalized.

In the case you cited- the order deploying the soldiers was legal, and had to be obeyed. Nothing wrong with a simple federal officer saying "Go there". The legal question comes after that- They get until trouble the moment they try and do traffic control- that's a civilian law enforcement action. Without order from the Govenor, using federal forces for traffic control would have been a violation of Posse Comitatus.

You might remember that there was a big discussion over that during the response to Katrina. Everybody was yelling for G.W. deploy federal forces into New Orleans. The problem was---what exactly did you want those federal forces to do? Rescue people? Ok. You can do that legally. But secure a block from looters? With active duty military? That would be illegal under Posse Comitatus.

I don't know if that is part of Federal pre-commissioning training today, but I presume it probably still is. It also has generally been included in "Major" level training courses (Army Command, Control Communication course CAS3), and senior Army War College classes for those chosen for Lt. Col. to Col. promotions. So I think the education inclusion is pretty robust. I think that was more likely probably just a case of one guy who screwed up, and responded without really thinking, or without getting his actions cleared from above.

Great post, James! People forget the limitations of Posse Comitatus on the military when a natural disaster strikes.