He wrote, “You are using the military to create fear in the minds of the people.”
General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the highest-ranking military officer in the United States, took office in October 2019. That was back when President Donald Trump was still in power, and while there have been plenty of reports of chaos in that administration, a newly released letter by Milley is turning even more heads. In a scathing (and never-sent) resignation letter , Milley opines about how he believed Trump was doing “irreparable harm” to the nation.
An excerpt from a forthcoming book, The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021, calls attention to the tension that was brewing between President Trump and his generals, who were meant to be his key advisers on military action.
It’s been reported that Milley’s first response to being offered the job was, “Mr. President, I’ll do whatever you ask me to do.” And Milley was quick to make his loyalty even more obvious: “You’re going to make the decisions, and as long as they’re legal I’ll support it,” he reportedly said.
However, it soon became clear to Milley that he wouldn’t long be able to support the president in his endeavors. Just two weeks into his stint with the President, as tension was brewing in the Senate over Trump’s eagerness to pull American troops out from Syria, Milley was apparently beginning to realize that he faced a real challenge with the President.
Things hit a breaking point on June 1, 2020, when the nation was still reeling from the terrors of George Floyd’s death, and Black Lives Matter protestors were violently removed from Washington D.C.’s Lafayette Square. A few minutes later, Trump walked into the Square for a photo op, and Milley stood behind him in his military uniform. The pictures were meant to show the President’s forceful response to the protests, but were met with severe criticism.
Soon enough, Milley recognized the error of his decision and apologized, saying, “I should not have been there. My presence in that moment, and in that environment, created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.”
But his discontent ran deeper:A week later, on June 8, 2020, Milley drafted a scathing resignation letter, but never actually submitted it. In his letter, Milley expressed his belief that Trump was causing “great and irreparable harm” to the country and explained that the then-president was “using the military to create fear in the minds of people.”Further, Milley wrote that he believed Trump was “causing significant damage” to the United States and other nations. He continued, “It is now clear to me that you do not understand the world order.”
Here’s the full letter that never actually made it to the President:
I regret to inform you that I intend to resign as your Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Thank you for the honor of appointing me as senior ranking officer. The events of the last couple weeks have caused me to do deep soul-searching, and I can no longer faithfully support and execute your orders as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is my belief that you were doing great and irreparable harm to my country. I believe that you have made a concerted effort over time to politicize the United States military. I thought that I could change that. I’ve come to the realization that I cannot, and I need to step aside and let someone else try to do that.
Second, you are using the military to create fear in the minds of the people—and we are trying to protect the American people. I cannot stand idly by and participate in that attack, verbally or otherwise, on the American people. The American people trust their military and they trust us to protect them against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and our military will do just that. We will not turn our back on the American people.
Third, I swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States and embodied within that Constitution is the idea that says that all men and women are created equal. All men and women are created equal, no matter who you are, whether you are white or Black, Asian, Indian, no matter the color of your skin, no matter if you’re gay, straight or something in between. It doesn’t matter if you’re Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jew, or choose not to believe. None of that matters. It doesn’t matter what country you came from, what your last name is—what matters is we’re Americans. We’re all Americans. That under these colors of red, white, and blue—the colors that my parents fought for in World War II—means something around the world. It’s obvious to me that you don’t think of those colors the same way I do. It’s obvious to me that you don’t hold those values dear and the cause that I serve.
And lastly it is my deeply held belief that you’re ruining the international order, and causing significant damage to our country overseas, that was fought for so hard by the Greatest Generation that they instituted in 1945. Between 1914 and 1945, 150 million people were slaughtered in the conduct of war. They were slaughtered because of tyrannies and dictatorships. That generation, like every generation, has fought against that, has fought against fascism, has fought against Nazism, has fought against extremism. It’s now obvious to me that you don’t understand that world order. You don’t understand what the war was all about. In fact, you subscribe to many of the principles that we fought against. And I cannot be a party to that. It is with deep regret that I hereby submit my letter of resignation.
But instead of resigning, Milley reportedly decided to fight his battle from inside the government, allegedly saying, “If they want to court-martial me, or put me in prison, have at it. But I will fight from the inside.”
