There is the headline we’ve all been waiting for and expect to see a lot more like it. The reason? Service members know that the *Commander in Chief* is uninformed and flaky at best. The acronym TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) didn’t come into being and stick for nothing. It’s a perfect monicker for the on again, off again Trump. They also know that the Secretary of Defense is a renowned drunkard. Ergo, it’s little surprise that the hotlines that service members use to discuss issues of concern to their particular field have been burning up. What to do when a clearly illegal order comes through, say, bombing San Francisco? It could happen and the men and women tasked with carrying out the order are understandably worried.
As the country tumbles towards fascism, some members of the U.S. military have struggled with a choice: defy illegal orders, or participate in the dismantling of American democracy.
In June, over the objections of local leaders, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, President Donald Trump called up the National Guard and the U.S. Marines to quell protests in Los Angeles over immigration raids. That month, calls to the GI Rights Hotline spiked. The hotline provides information on military discharges and related issues; all calls are confidential. The hotline, which is jointly administered by a large consortium of nonprofit organizations, connects callers with both paid resource counselors and experienced volunteers.
The consortium includes groups like Quaker House and The Center on Conscience & War, which assists service members with applications for conscientious objector status, and has seen a similar uptick in requests for help. So far this year, the center has helped 30 service members submit applications — more than they typically submit in an entire year. A high percentage of these applications are usually successfully accepted, according to the center.
Steve Woolford, a counselor with the hotline, told Truthout in an email that his office, which is just one of the multiple sites that staff the hotline, received over 300 calls in June, a 94 percent increase in calls from the previous June.
“Overall callers have shared serious concerns that the president is moving the country away from a representative democracy altogether,” Woolford told Truthout in an email. “These callers believe that the military will determine what the United States becomes by deciding which side to follow. For them, having service members refuse to turn their backs on the constitution is the safeguard against martial law and dictatorship.”
That is where the line is drawn. Our men and women in uniform have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States — not to pander to the impulse and whim of an unstable man who lies through his teeth on a daily basis, particularly when it comes to military matters. So do not be surprised if Trump one day tells Pete Hegseth to fire into a crowd of citizens “shoot them in the legs,” a phrase he’s already used, and Hegseth goes along with it. And then the troops who actually pull the triggers decide that they won’t.
It’s stunning that we’ve gotten to this place. This is a scene out of dystopian science fiction. Remember Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Running Man? He was told to fire into a crowd from a helicopter and wouldn’t do it and then the fascist state turned on him, remember that? There are real life people nowadays who are wondering if that time hasn’t come for them.
“They are absolutely petrified of being put in a position in which they are the vehicle to advance further authoritarianism, and the proto-fascism that we’re seeing,” Bettancourt told Truthout. “There is absolutely that fear that they’re going to be the pawns in this chess game that brings about the further expansion of authoritarianism.”
Bettancourt said some service members fear the military will become Trump’s domestic police force, potentially in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. He says this is a particularly fraught prospect for Latino personnel, who could be deployed to carry out Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda. Thousands of immigrants enlist in the military each year. In fiscal year 2024, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services naturalized more than 16,000 service members — a 34 percent increase from the previous year. Of those naturalized between fiscal years 2020 and 2024, the top five countries of origin were the Philippines, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, and Ghana.
“They feel they’re betraying themselves,” said Bettancourt, himself an immigrant from Colombia.
You cannot blame these troops for feeling this way. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place. There has never been a time in this nation, and that includes when we were at war with Vietnam and tempers ran hot, that troops questioned not following orders from the chain of command. But 2025 and Trump 2.0 is different. Now our troops are losing sleep and dialing the hotline.
