Many talk about the National Guard being citizen soldiers. Unfortunately, many consider those who become soldiers to no longer be citizens. That is, once a person becomes a soldier that person is to become an automaton, blindly following orders without dissent.
However, if we are to be a democracy, all must question authority, whether in the military or not.
Our history is full of incidents questioning the decisions of those above in the chain of command, from the Revolution to the Philipines takeover to Bradley Manning. Sometimes it is only because a higher officer has ignored custom; sometimes it is because the generals or the politicians are lying about the purposes or results of a war.
These situations can also show the fallacy of casting issues as conservative or liberal.
See "Revolt in the Ranks: Dissent in the armed forces is a patriotic tradition", Chris Bray, The American Conservative, 2012-06-12, republished in Utne Reader, Nov.-Dec 2012
