If there’s one thing Petraeus cannot tolerate in his Army, it’s disloyalty. Lately, it’s been brought to my attention that former service members are using their uniforms and time “downrange” as springboards into the public eye — trading in the honor of their uniform for a chance to voice their opinions to the masses.

All I have to say is this: you don’t hear Petraeus discussing his complicated, multi-tiered plan to reinvent society along the lines of ancient Sparta’s government, with me as one of two revered warrior kings.

Associated Press

That’s because it’s a political statement, made while I’m in uniform, and that’s not how I run things in Iraq. It’s not for me to say whether or not I endorse forcible mass conscriptions of professional atheletes into our elite special forces / Ranger units, to field an unstoppable war machine of disciplined killers … I’m just the man who would lead them. The questions regarding replacing our trained dogs with trained pigs, because pigs would strike terror and revulsion into the hearts of our Muslim enemies? Not questions I’m willing or able to answer, because — once again — while the thought may have crossed my mind, in the United States of America, the military takes its orders from civilian leadership. And civilian leadership doesn’t wear military uniforms.