I attended a military retirement ceremony last month where Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, presided. The atmosphere was eerily normal as senior officers played "Let's pretend everything is fine." Denial and abdication of responsibility are the two coping strategies for Trump's presidency. Caine recently advocated that officers only answer "can we do something?" — the military question — while "should we do something?" is a policy matter they shouldn't address. This is a dangerous cop-out.

The Trump administration has committed acts military officers should find outrageous: extrajudicial executions of alleged drug dealers and a head of state plus family members, kidnapping another head of state, starting war without congressional authorization, and deploying National Guard troops in Democratic cities without local consent. Lower-level officers are privately appalled but fear retaliation from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

All officers swear to "support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic." This demands they advise on what the military should or should not do and refuse unlawful orders. Senior leaders serve at the nexus of force and policy; they must be more than technocrats. Fairness is irrelevant — responsibility comes with the rank, and no one is forced to accept these positions.