Portland City Council member Mitch Green has doubled down on his urging of National Guard personnel to refuse deployment directives. This follows Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek’s statement that Guardsmen are obligated to adhere to the chain of command, irrespective of her own reservations.
“I have a different understanding of the oath of service,” Green stated to CNN on Tuesday.
“The oath of service states that you must follow the Constitution. You are tasked with protecting and upholding the Constitution. Your allegiance is to the Constitution, and there may be instances where you receive an order from your superior that is unlawful,” he explained.
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“The choice of whether to comply with that order at that moment will rest on the individual soldier’s, airman’s, or Marine’s moral judgment,” he elaborated.
Green had previously encouraged National Guard members to “disregard” any “illegal directive,” asserting their “responsibility” to do so.
He told CNN that he had never refused a deployment or order during his military service, but pointed out that he had never “encountered a blatantly unlawful order to deploy to an American city.”
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Green’s latest comments were made one day after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed one of two temporary restraining orders (TROs) that were preventing National Guard deployments to Portland.
Since the ruling does not apply to both orders, Kotek contends that National Guard members from Oregon or any other state “cannot be deployed” until the other is reversed, according to NPR.
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While Green mentioned that neither he nor his office has heard directly from military personnel, he stated that veterans with contacts to active-duty troops have reported “uncertainty,” saying many are “questioning whether this is what they enlisted for.”
“I anticipate that in the coming days and weeks, when troops do arrive, if that happens… that each morning, troops will wake up and contemplate, ‘Does this truly align with the Constitution?’”
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Green added that he is “fully prepared” to connect soldiers who choose to reject the order with resources that can help them manage the legal consequences of their decision.
“The National Lawyers Guild Military Law Task Force maintains a website and a one-page document that service members can possess as a pamphlet, with one copy on their person, that links them to resources,” he stated.
“Naturally, they will face a legal risk, but they are not alone in a community of individuals who have made this choice, and we will support them,” Green concluded.
