The Day I Risked My Career to Keep My Honor

My time in uniform has been many years ago now. But some days, some moments, are etched in my memory like stone. No—stone weathers and fades. These few seared memories are as vivid as if they happened yesterday. They are few, but they were life-altering.

The day I left my crying family at the airport and went off to war.

The first explosion.

The first foot patrol.

The first body.

Waking up alive in the Bagram ICU.

Looking down the barrel of an AK-47 held by a man who was not my friend.

The single time I looked my commanding officer in the eye and told him, “Sir, respectfully, I must decline to follow your unlawful order.”

The Army was good at preparing us for hard things. We trained to craft and take orders, to inflict and receive casualties, to plan and execute missions from the mundane to the exciting, to charge an objective under fire, to take that hill.

We studied lawful versus unlawful orders. We had history lessons on the My Lai Massacre and disobeying obviously illegal orders. We learned the law of war and proportionality of force. We role-played how we might respond to an obviously suicidal unit mission. It looks easy in the movies with dramatic music in the background. It’s significantly more nuanced when you consider real-life scenarios with your and your friends’ lives—and your career—on the line.

There was no training for the mechanics of disobeying. Do you just say “no” or resign your commission on the spot? Was there a form? The Army has a damned form for everything—why not this? It was all just couched as a hypothetical exercise you’d never actually need.

When the time came for me, a Captain, to tell my Lieutenant Colonel boss—while we were both armed and in a new, undeveloped, and sporty combat zone—in the most professional way possible, to F right off, I had to figure it out on my own.

The circumstances aren’t important now. But I had been frustrated and driven to a point where I had studied up on what was legal versus what was not. My whole team had been manipulated, put into unnecessarily dangerous positions by this man who was arguably mentally ill, and we had no support. I had enough. I had followed every prior order since the day I took the oath, and I followed every subsequent order until the day of my discharge.

My words surprised him and emboldened me. After five seconds of silence, flushed faces, and dismissal, nothing came of it other than me being cast to the hinterlands of our area of operations, never to work directly with him again. But I was always suspicious of a surprise consequence lurking in wait—MPs and an Article 15 waiting for me at my firebase bunk, airplane seat home, or around the barracks corner back in the U.S. Maybe another BS mission that sent me with little support on a wild goose chase to the rough parts of town. They never came, but I expected them for years.

I still remember other peer Captains at my base, after word got out, asking about it.

“I can’t believe you told him that.”

My response was always the same: “I thought we were supposed to do the right thing, consequences be damned. That’s what officers do.”

“Yeah, but you just threw away your career.”

“Maybe…”

These Captains’ incredulity was one of many clues planting the seeds of suspicion that being an Army officer was not a long-term career well-suited for my temperament. In the end, injuries and a medical discharge decided my fate for me.

But that moment—those ten words out of my mouth—became a memory and moment nearly as important to me as my faith and my family. It was a test, my test alone, and as far as I’m concerned, I passed. Present and Future Me will always remember 2003 Me for that moment when I kept my integrity and honor intact. It’s mine, and I cherish that moment like a jewel.

In retrospect, my moment was more a function of having a lunatic boss rather than rampant crime or injustice. But it’s my moment just the same. I still had to think through my reaction if he drew his gun on me—and that stays with a guy.

I write all this not to pat myself on the back, but because I write today with immense frustration as I listen to and read, yet again, drivel from outright morons in Washington, D.C. These fools wave around instructions for soldiers enduring life-changing integrity moments like cheap sound bites, like political gotchas, like tin tokens at an amusement park.

Those moments—those ultra-rare situations where a junior soldier must stand up to a senior soldier, abandon his faith in the chain of command, do the right thing, and say “NO”—are deeply personal. It’s a nuclear option you hope you never need. If ever, it’s generally done only to look out for your own troops or to protect civilians. It is certainly not done to cover for ignorant politicians.

Such a moment carries the same weight as being baptized, graduating, or getting arrested. It’s an acceptance that your current career is probably over. Your life will pivot—and not likely in a good direction. You might go to jail no matter how right you think you are. You might be shot on the spot, depending on the mental stability of your boss. I guarantee you all this goes quickly through the head of a young Captain just before the words come out.

How dare they? How dare these fools in D.C. on both sides of the aisle now throw around words like oath, illegal, treason, and insurrection with the conviction of empty campaign promises? Each side asks for blind allegiance. One side asks soldiers for their integrity moment like it’s a lobbyist favor, saying it’s cool to #resist. The other side warns not to dare be so bold as to consider law-of-war military training and think for yourself. As has played out for millennia, politicians of all stripes demand way more than they’re due. It is all nauseating.

Like millions before me, I served—mostly proudly—and would do it all again. In 2021, I took the American flag off our house for more reasons than I can write here. I’ve been hoping for reasons to find enough faith in my nation, to find another moment, to fly that beautiful rectangle of cloth again. This week, sadly, I’m glad I keep it still folded well away.

Those grandstanding fools in D.C. do not deserve my moment, nor anyone else’s.

Unless you truly mean it and are ready for all the consequences, do not give anyone yours.

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David is a father, husband, son, boss, writer, beekeeper, outdoorsman, occasional teacher, compulsive elk hunter, Afghanistan veteran, and living proof that anyone is trainable. He is a 1994 South Dakota School of Mines graduate. David spent 12 years in the Army and Army Reserve as an Engineer Officer before that career was cut short with Afghanistan injuries. He spent decades as a consulting civil engineer working in communities all around the American West and now oversees his firm’s engineering department. David continues to amaze both friend and foe being an engineer who can write a story.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.