Don’t they get cold?
NO HE WAS NOT ORDERED TO WEAR A UN HELMET!
Got that?
He was ordered to wear a particular item of the United States Army uniform as directed, ultimately, by the Chief of Staff of the United States Army. Said item of the uniform being a distinguishing item, along the lines of the famous green beret, to indicate to which type of unit/duty he was assigned at the time.
Another thing is that US Soldiers do not serve under the UN. They serve under their US commanding officers in support of UN missions when their unit is assigned to do such by, you guessed it, the US government.
During the Korean Conflict, wearing a blue helmet would be a mighty fine way to show your location. At the moment, you can cruise into Seoul or Pyongtaek and check out the Military Police assigned there and notice that they’re wearing nifty little armbands which are written in both English and Korean. That by no means says the US Soldiers are serving in the Korean Armed Forces.
You’ve gone far, far beyond “black helicopter territory” with the continued assertions above.
Maybe not, MEBuckner; after all, LC did say he’d “come across” them so it’s not unreasonable to assume their was, shall we say, some activity keeping everyone involved warm.
<VEG>
:smack:
“…there…” not “…their…” above, please.
:smack:
p.s. The UN flag was displayed quite often during the Korean Conflict.
p.p.s. The Chief of Staff (again, assuming this is the individual who issued the order concerned) made a clearly lawful and not unconstitutional order to have the members of certain units of the United States Army wear a particular identifying device, in this case it was a helmet blue in color, to indicate that said Soldiers are members of that particular unit. This is no different whatsoever from the order to me, back when I was assigned in my Army days to the 8th Infantry Division (Mechanized), to wear the 8th ID(M) distinguishign patch on my left sleeve. Neither order is unlawful. Neither order is unconstitutional. There is no additional oath taken by the Servicemember to enter the non-existant UN Army and there is no conflict as the Servicemember is performing his lawfully ordered duties.
p.p.p.s. Neurotik: Hermann’s argument (no matter how stupid or not it is) is completely irrelevant as there is no such thing as the UN uniform.
p.p.p.p.s. IIRC, New got discharged from the Army with a Bad Conduct Discharge.
Let me see if I have this right…
Elected officials decide that supporting the UN in a given scenario is a nifty way to protect and defend the US constitution and per extension the country. The CINC concurs. A directive is passed through the chain of command and ends up as a lawful order, issued to a soldier in the line of duty. And you believe it’s up to the soldier to pass judgment on the constitutional soundness of the order ?
That would make for an interesting Army, sure enough.
If a soldier felt that it was not in line with protecting and defending the US constitution to ship out to Iraq, should he refuse the order ? Obviously not.
You - and the soldier in question - can work as citizens to change the laws and prevent soldiers from serving in UN operations. Or make such operations volunteer-only.
It isn’t - and it shouldn’t be - the individual soldier’s call to make.
Somewhere in Atlanta there’s a bloke at a computer monitor chuckling insanely at his own humour. I know this because I do it myself … 
Believe it or not (looking at the last poster) the UN soldier I knew best was Danish - remember a Danish deployment on the Golan Heights about 10 years ago, Spiny ?
Anyway, about the clothes … you know how those Danes get … very Scandinavian … we’ve all seen the video’s … nods as good as a wink …
AR 27-1? Sheesh, my memory’s playing some tricks. Here’s the actual regulation involved: AR 670-1.
There are also quite a number of Servicemembers in our Armed Forces who wear, as directed by the appropriate Service regulation/instruction, a number of different awards, badges, and/or devices from other governments.
Yes, but see, if there was a UN uniform that argument still wouldn’t hold water. I stand my ground.
…cite for anybody interested…
http://csf.colorado.edu/dfax/ipn/ipn12.htm#C-0064
(scroll down the page, internal links do not seem to be working…)
…also a pro-Michael New cite, take it with a grain of salt…
For what it’s worth, the full enlistment oath is as follows:
I, whomever, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
As others have mentioned it was disobeying the italicized part that got New in trouble.
Jess
There isn’t a UN army. There isn’t a UN uniform.
It is common, but never compulsory, for member states of the UN to make troops available for the enforcement of UN mandates. Individual states will usually do this because they conceive it to be in their own national interests, either because they have a strategic interest in the mandate concerned or because they value the reputation of being “good global citizens” or (occasionally) because they value the experience which their troops will obtain.
A state which makes troops available in this way can withdraw them at any time. Participation in UN operations is therefore less of a dilution of sovereignty than participation in, say, NATO, where the member states are obliged to come to one another’s defence, and where all but one of the member states are necessarily placing their trops under the operational command of an officer of another army (since NATO has only one supreme commander).
Countries which make troops available for UN mandates may issue them with a distinguishing badge or another uniform element, such as a helmet. Where this is done, it is done for operational reasons - identifying the troops in this way is thought to confer some advantage in the field, such as reducing the chances of their being attacked by mistake.
Where to issue a badge or the like is a decision for the country concerned. For obvious reasons, the countries supplying troops to a given mandate are likely to confer, and try to arrive at a common decision, but their is no obligation to do so.
It seems to me that the soldier in this case was rightly discharged. He had violated his enlistment oath.
The oath to defend the Constitution and obey lawful orders trumps SP4 New’s opinion. And YES he IS defending the Constitution by serving in a UN force. How come? Because his Commander in Chief made the decision that success of a particular UN mission would be beneficial to US interests and reduce the threats to the security of the US, which means we can continue to live under our Constitution.
And as pointed out above – it’s your same US helmet, in all it’s kevlared glory. Only painted blue or with a blue cover.
jrd
Is it me or is there a sudden spate of lame(*) anti-UN posting going on today?
(*as opposed to well-argued ones, those do exist)
I see the oath says nothing about being obliged to go abroad in general or to Irak in particular. I guess soldiers can refuse to go there? That seems to me more important than whether the uniform color is pink or fuchsia or whether the insignia makes one look good or not.
Jess: Minor nitpick–it’s “I, whoever, do {solemnly swear}/affirm” as that’s the nominative case.
JRD: Back in 1985, the ranks of SP5 and SP6 were converted to SGT and SSG, respectively, and thus there’s no longer the rank abbreviation of SP4; it’s now SPC.
Plus, it’s not you. There is quite a bit of lame anti-UN (along with a good deal of lame anti-US) stuff happening of late.
Bit of a hijack, but I wonder if it wouldn’t be desirable to allow US servicemembers to voluntarily join units which are earmarked for UN duty. This would eliminate some of the concerns raised here and allow for more aggressive use by the UN.
Sounds about right - a few of the senior NCOs from my old regiment went there, if memory serves me. The Danish Army has gone a bit overboard in UN deployments - for a while, Denmark had the world record in deployed UN troops per capita.
Golan was the “old” sort of UN deployment with observation as the mission, light weapons for self-defence and you’d come home with a tan. Bosnia changed that, of course - all of a sudden UN troops in Leopard tanks were exchanging fire with the locals and some came home in boxes instead.
Touching lightly on the OP, UN duty is voluntary, but refusing to go is not a good career move. This caused some friction in the mid-nineties (What to do if only 3 out of a 4-man tank crew want to go ?), but todays troopers know that UN duty might be part of the job.
Maybe, but it’s also a matter of cost. Deployments cost money, so just earmarking certain units for UN duty wouldn’t be enough, IMHO, if the US is still shouldering the cost for troop deployments with missions that the US doesn’t deem important enough to use normal troops for.
As a matter of policy, there might be good practical arguments for seeking volunteers for particular missions (and this need not be confined to UN missions). There are obvious advantages in having units made up of men and women who have positively volunteered for the role involved.
However for the sake of military discipline, and arguably as a matter of principle, I don’t think it should be conceded that soldiers have a right to opt out of particular missions, at any rate on political grounds. Where and how the United States Army is to serve is ultimately a political decision, which should be made by accountable civil officers, and soldiers who are not willing to accept that civil control should not serve.
On a purely technical point, referring to my poor old 1972 edition of the Manual for Courts Martial, United States, and the table of maximum and authorized punishments I find:
Article 90. Disobedience of the lawful order of a superior commissioned officer–dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances and five years confinement.
Article 91. Same, warrant officer–DD and two years.
Article 91. Same, noncommissioned officer–DD and one year.
Article 92. Failure to obey (not necessarily willful) a lawful general order or regulation–DD and two years.
Article 92. Failure to obey other lawful order–Bad Conduct Discharge and six months.
Article 134. Abusing a public animal-- three months confinement and forfeiture of 2/3 pay and allowances (this is irrelevant, I just think that it is amusing).
These are all maximum punishments–the worst that can happen. The Court Martial is free to impose a lesser sentence and the approving authority can reduce the sentence but not increase it.