Milley’s Chance to Right His ‘Mistake’ – By Kevin Baron (Defense One) / June 11 2020
The Joint Chiefs chairman now says he was wrong to walk with the president. Will he survive to push back a second time?
Ten days after Gen. Mark Milley appeared in combat fatigues on the streets of Washington, D.C., alongside National Guard troops deployed to quell civil unrest — and with his very presence, appearing to endorse President Donald Trump’s photo-op at St. John’s Church and the forcible clearing of protestors that enabled it — the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has acknowledged he screwed up.
“I should not have been there,” Milley said Thursday in a pre-taped speech to new graduates of National Defense University. In his remarks, which were leaked to a few national news outlets, Milley denounced George Floyd’s killing and supported the nationwide peaceful protests it sparked. He spoke at length about the U.S. military’s checkered history with racism, its persistent inability to promote minorities into the seniormost ranks of generals and admirals, and the steps the service branches would begin taking to do so.
By acknowledging systemic racism in America, admitting his error, and stating plainly that the U.S. military should be used to defend the Constitution and kept out of politics, Milley aligned himself with a growing phalanx of serving and retired senior officers — and Trump administration officials — who have felt compelled in recent days to make similar statements, all designed to assure the American people that their military is not a private security force for this president or any other.
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