“We are unique among the world’s armies. We are unique among the world’s militaries. We don’t take an oath to a country. We don’t take an oath to a tribe. We don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant, or to a dictator, or to a wannabe dictator. We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea, that as America, we are willing to die to protect it.”
“Those values and ideas are contained within the Constitution of the United States of America which is the moral North Star for all of us who had the privilege to wear the cloth of our nation. It’s that document that all of us wearing that uniform swear to protect and defend against all enemies, foreign, and domestic. Those who sacrificed themselves upon the alter of freedom the last two and a half centuries of this country must not have done so in vain. The millions wounded in this nations wars did not sacrifice their limbs, and shed their blood, to see this great experiment in democracy perish from this earth. No. We the American people, we the American military must never turn our backs on those who came before us. We will never turn our back on the Constitution. That is our North Star. That is who we are, and that is why we fight.”
General Mark Milley
Speech during Hale & Farewell Ceremony, 29 Sep 2023.
The remarks come one week after former President Donald Trump suggested the retiring general should be killed.
