‘The military is not his palace guards,’ retired three-star general says of Donald Trump

‘The military is not his palace guards,’ retired three-star general says of Donald Trump

By Peter Holley March 7

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling says he had “a visceral response” to some of the rhetoric Donald Trump unleashed during the most recent Republican debate.

But the statement that really concerned him, Hertling told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Monday, came when Trump told debate moderator Bret Baier that there’s no way U.S. service members would refuse to follow his orders.

“They won’t refuse,” Trump said during Thursday’s debate on Fox News. “They’re not going to refuse me, believe me. If I say do it, they’re going to do it. That’s what leadership is all about.”

Hertling forcefully disagreed, calling the Republican front-runner’s management style “toxic leadership.”

“Somebody needs to remind Mr. Trump that the military is not his palace guards,” Hertling said. “They take an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. They also abide by the rules — not only of the uniform code of military justice, the UCMJ — but they also abide by the U.N. mandate against torture and the Geneva Convention protocols against torture.”

“We do not do this,” he added. “It is not within our purview.”...

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/03/07/the-military-is-not-his-palace-guards-retired-three-star-general-says-of-donald-trump/?tid=sm_fb