[Salon] Should Senior Military Officers Consider Resigning?



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Should Senior Military Officers Consider Resigning?

Several Coordinated Resignations Based on Principle Could Make a Difference

Bill Astore   10/7/25

Should senior military officers consider resigning?

The short answer is yes—if they believe the orders they are given violate their oath to the U.S. Constitution.

In practice, however, resigning for cause is exceedingly rare. The military is a culture of conformity and hierarchy, where resignation is often seen as an act of rebellion—a threat to cohesion and discipline. Officers are taught to work quietly within the system, to suppress doubts, and to remain “loyal” to superiors and to the institution itself. Few are willing to resign openly on moral or legal grounds.

For senior officers, the decision to resign in protest is especially difficult. Colonel David Hackworth, one of the most decorated soldiers of the Vietnam era, resigned after concluding the war was unwinnable—not because he viewed it as unconstitutional. Earlier, General Harold K. Johnson, the Army Chief of Staff under President Lyndon Johnson, considered resigning in protest of the administration’s Vietnam policies but ultimately stayed, hoping to influence policy from within. He later regretted that decision, admitting he had lacked the moral courage to resign.

Both Hackworth and Johnson objected to how the war was fought, not to whether it was lawful. That distinction is crucial.

Senior officers today may likewise convince themselves that remaining in uniform allows them to do the most good—to temper reckless orders from within the system. Resignation, after all, feels like quitting. And there’s an unspoken incentive to stay: the lucrative post-retirement opportunities awaiting those who keep faith with the military-industrial complex.

Given the recent clownish and dangerous behavior of Trump and his defense war secretary, Pete Hegseth, one hopes that senior military leaders are at least preparing for the possibility of resignation—keeping their powder dry until a clear line is crossed. Arguably, that line may already have been crossed.

One resignation might not change much. But several coordinated resignations—anchored in principle—could. The question is whether today’s generals and admirals have the moral courage to do so when the moment arrives.

Trump and Hegseth appear to have neutralized much of the brass by flooding the Pentagon with money. But will those same leaders, drunk on budgets and contracts, have the courage to resist illegal orders and yet another series of wars launched on dubious grounds?

Already, Trump and Hegseth have issued extrajudicial orders—such as the recent killings of suspected smugglers on three speedboats in the Caribbean, ostensibly part of the “war on drugs.” They have deployed active-duty troops to U.S. cities under partisan pretexts that appear to violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. And more attacks on Iran—without any declaration of war—may be imminent.

Given all this, there is ample reason for senior officers to consider coordinated resignations in protest. The question is whether they will summon the moral courage to do what is right—to uphold their oath by walking away.

Perhaps they could call it Operation Just Cause—an operation without bombs or killing, requiring that rarest of things: moral courage.



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