Ge. Mark Milley.Photo: MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Just days after being photographed wearing combat fatigues and accompanying then-PresidentDonald Trumpacross Lafayette Square after federal officersviolently cleared Black Lives Matter protestersfrom the area, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, decided he wanted to quit his job.
“The events of the last couple weeks have caused me to do deep soul-searching,” Milley reportedly wrote, “and I can no longer faithfully support and execute your orders as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
Milley wrote the letter after he was among the officials photographed striding to a park near the White House, where Trump decided to walk for anow-infamous photo opoutside St. John’s Episcopal Churchafter authorities forcibly dispersedaGeorge Floydprotest.
Milley was not seen in photos taken outside the church, as he peeled off from the group on their walk to the church, realizing that it was a mistake. Still, he was seen in photos striding toward the park and wearing official military dress while doing so.
As Milley allegedly wrote in the letter he never sent, his “soul-searching” about that day had led him to make a conclusion about Trump: that he was doing “irreparable harm” to the United States of America.
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“It is my belief that you were doing great and irreparable harm to my country,” he wrote in the letter, according toThe Divider. “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.”
Milley ultimately decided not to resign from his post, tellingThe New Yorkerhe chose instead to “fight from the inside.”
Days after the photos were taken, Milleypublicly apologizedduring aprerecorded keynote addressto the National Defense University’s class of 2020.
“As many of you saw the results of the photograph of me in Lafayette Square last week, that sparked a national debate about the role of the military in civil society,” he said. “I should not have been there. My presence in that moment, and in that environment, created the perception of the military involved in domestic politics.”
Milley sought to turn the incident into a teaching lesson in his keynote address on Thursday, telling graduates it “was a mistake that I have learned from.”
“I sincerely hope that we all can learn from it,” he said. “We who wear the cloth of our nation come from the people of our nation. We must hold dear the principle of an apolitical military that is so deeply rooted in the essence of our republic.”
source: people.com
