From Fr. David Nix: Robert Green was my parishioner when I was a parochial vicar at a traditional parish on the East Coast. As the inside cover of his new book reads, Robert “has become one of the Navy’s most vocal figures in the fight against the unlawful implementation of the military COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Banned from his building and fired from his position leading a 650-person unit, he is the author of numerous impactful internal Navy complaints, multiple whistleblower reports to Congress, and a key source of evidence for ongoing Federal Court cases related to the military vaccine mandate.” Following Memorial Day, I believe this blog was best to honor our most loyal servicemen.
Guest article, by Robert A. Green Jr.:
For the secular powers of this present darkness, it is no longer sufficient for a service member (or any American) to abstain or refrain from an activity that violates their conscience. They want your actions, your values, and your very identity to conform to the current agenda and to the current narrative, regardless of how politicized those issues become. It does not matter to our current military leaders how rapidly or how aggressively these political agendas have driven us away from traditional Christian and American values. Anything short of full-throated support for the current political agenda or the approved narrative and you will quickly become the subject of institutional distrust. If a service member goes so far as to openly oppose an approved narrative or political agenda, the bureaucratic might of the Department of Defense is quickly brought to bear. Leaders within the DoD then weaponize twisted forms of military law and tacitly-approved shadow policies to harm those service members, especially the most vulnerable.
The weaponization of military law and military policy have become most evident through recent unlawful orders and unethical policies targeting religious liberty and medical freedom. Throughout my nearly 20 years of service I have been issued hundreds, perhaps thousands, of orders. Until 2020 not one of those orders had been unlawful. All that has changed, however, as the hidden forces of evil began to publicly manifest themselves and coopt federal agencies (including the DoD) to accelerate the dismantling of individual liberty. My superiors in the United States Navy went along with this agenda and promulgated multiple related orders that violated my religious freedom, my conscience, and my bodily integrity.
First, I was ordered to not attend indoor religious services. As a traditional Catholic and father of seven children, I knew that I could never follow such an order. Following this order would demonstrate to my children that my Catholic faith was subservient to the whims of a secular (and atheistic) government. My family and I were blessed to live very near an incredibly courageous and faithful priest who was willing to say secret masses during the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021. My superiors in the Navy, however, directed me to sign a document acknowledging that I would not attend indoor religious services. I refused to sign the order as written, choosing instead to change the language of the document to “I acknowledge the following order,” and essentially daring my chain of command to spy on me and prosecute me for disobeying such an unlawful and unconstitutional order. At the time, we were still two years away from learning that the FBI was planning and executing just such operations against what they called “Radical Traditional Catholics” (RTCs).
Next I was ordered to take a medical intervention that I neither wanted nor needed, and that also violated my deeply held religious beliefs. This order, to take a COVID-19 “vaccine,” was issued in support of a political agenda and despite clear data demonstrating very little benefit for the overwhelmingly young and healthy military population. On January 7th, 2022, after refusing the “vaccine” and an unlawful requirement to accept emergency-use COVID-19 screening tests, I was fired from my position leading a 650-person security squadron for the U.S. Navy. I was then sent home, with no further responsibilities beyond calling in daily to a superior officer six states away. I was threatened with disciplinary action and had some very tough conversations about what would happen to me in the event of a court-martial and prison time.
I think those in charge of the military expected us to react in fear to their coercive tactics and to prioritize our own self-preservation as so many of them had done. We did not react as expected, however. Seeing the new domestic threats to individual liberty and the Constitution, many hundreds of us went on the offensive. We took the fight to the enemy through dozens of lawsuits in federal court, numerous whistleblower reports to Congress, and hundreds of Inspector General complaints. I personally authored dozens of such complaints and reports, including a number of complaints in which I demonstrate, in intricate detail, how certain three and four star admirals could be charged with mutiny for their unlawful actions.
Why were these unconventional “lawfare” operations so important? Many of us, who have been trained in multi-domain military strategy, understand that sometimes the best defense is a good offense. In order to defend the Constitution, which we clearly saw being dismantled around us, we had to take the fight to the enemy. We have taken a solemn oath before God to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. The oath is very intentional in directing a defense against two different vectors of potential attack. These two vectors are the external (foreign threats) and the internal (domestic threats). What exactly is meant by this two-pronged defense, and how should that defense be executed? In answer, I share a small excerpt from my forthcoming book in which I discuss the meaning behind the oath and how properly formed military members should interpret their call to defend the Constitution:
“Defending the Constitution does not mean defending a physical piece of paper on display somewhere in a museum. Defending the Constitution does not mean blindly defending government institutions that have so often erred and trampled the rights of citizens. Defending the Constitution, at the most fundamental level, means to defend the constitutional rights of individual citizens, just as our Founding Fathers intended. While military members are especially trained to defend the Constitution, and the way of life it enables, from foreign aggression, there can be no greater civic calling for an American citizen than defending individual constitutional rights whenever possible. Where the two unlawfully diverge, American military members must choose to defend individual constitutional rights as their first and highest civic calling. Anything else puts us on the inevitable path towards totalitarianism and the subsequent deprivation of our God-given right to live free in His service.”
It helps to use the lens of spiritual warfare to analyze the differences between threats posed by foreign aggressors and domestic threats posed by the dismantling of individual liberty. In this light, the parallel between the defense of our nation and the defense of an individual soul is remarkable. Defending the Constitution requires a strong US military that is capable of repelling foreign aggressors. However, even if we are strong externally, our constitutional republic and way of life it enables could still be lost if we do not defend against the internal domestic threats which seek to erode individual liberty. In spiritual warfare, the battle raging over individual souls requires a strong defense against external temptations from the world and the devil. The threat posed by concupiscence is a much more insidious spiritual threat because it is a fight within one’s self and often requires much greater vigilance to conquer.
So it is with our national defense. The internal threat to our constitutional republic posed by the slow erosion of liberty requires great vigilance. The fact that this erosion has accelerated to breakneck speed is largely due to the lack of vigilance from a significant portion of our society. Our Constitution does two main things; it establishes the form of our government, but more importantly, it restricts that government in order to protect individual liberty. Our Founding Fathers were deeply concerned that a strong federal government would eventually do exactly what it has been doing over the last 100 years, encroaching on the liberty of individual Americans.
Like the fight against concupiscence, the fight against domestic threats is incredibly difficult due to the deep introspection and painful mortification required to grow in virtue. As John Adams stated, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” As a society, we were not vigilant in remaining a moral and religious people. We are now paying the price in lost liberty. This is not what our Founding Fathers intended, and we must recognize the spiritual warfare elements at work here to properly direct an effective defense.
The looming courts-martial and the involuntary separations hanging over the heads of so many service members in 2021 and 2022 never came to fruition for me. The military’s stated goal of kicking me out, along with tens of thousands of other service members, was thwarted by several injunctions issued by multiple federal courts. Months later, Congress, despite the DoD’s efforts to the contrary, finally rescinded the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Many of those who had not yet been kicked out over this unconstitutional policy were put back to work.
After seven months of exile, I too was put back to work, but not until after my own stellar career was ambushed by leaders who took away a higher-education Naval War College opportunity, rejected the Meritorious Service Medal I was put in for, and gave me multiple negative performance evaluations based on nothing more than my conscientious objection to an unlawful order and in direct contradiction to my stellar performance record. We may have temporarily pushed back the rapidly accelerating tyranny of a run-away federal government, but the fight is far from over.
The damage to readiness perpetrated by our own leaders begins with the 8,000 service members separated over the vaccine mandate, a great many of whom filed religious accommodation requests. We are in the midst of one of the deepest recruiting droughts in U.S. history, and the DoD has made no effort to restore these members or offer back-pay despite offering other recruits up to $115,000 to enlist. The implication is obvious, and it boils down to the DoD insinuating that “religious service members need not apply.” All of this amounts to a deep betrayal of trust perpetrated by senior military leaders.
The ranks of those harmed go far beyond the 8,000 kicked out over the mandate. There are thousands of victims who are still in the service, still dealing with the fallout from past persecutions, and struggling through on-going harassment based on their choice to stand for their religious beliefs and bodily autonomy. These victims include many who were verbally abused for their religious beliefs, placed under weaponized mental health evaluations, and a great many, like myself who received negative paperwork or non-judicial punishments. I highlight the current situation of a Navy pilot as just one example of the thousands of service members still dealing with these harms. Before the vaccine mandate this Navy pilot had signed for a bonus of $60,000 in exchange for agreeing to a three year department head tour of duty. When the mandate came down he exercised his right to refuse the vaccine, and was promptly removed from his department head position, received other threats of punishment, and had his career completely derailed. Despite the fact that the mandate has been rescinded, the Navy is now perpetrating an additional injury by attempting to force him to repay the $60,000. After the Navy chose to sideline him for two years, they now claim that the unlawfully fired Navy pilot is the one who is breaking the department head contract by not agreeing to a new full three-year tour of duty.
The fight to defend the Constitution is ongoing. The individual rights of service members must be defended if we are to undo the damage done over the last three years. These wounds, inflicted by our own leaders, will not heal until we own these mistakes, restore the rule of law, and replace all military leaders who placed their personal careers above defending the Constitution.
To this end, I have written a tell-all book, detailing our fight in defense of the Constitution and individual liberties. I discuss the legal basis for the mandates as well as the military implications of the actions taken by both sides. Most importantly, I detail the unlawful actions of specific military leaders, and the many ways these actions harmed their subordinates and our national security. Standing upon my First Amendment rights, I will continue the fight for justice, individual liberties, and the Constitution. I ask you to join those of us in the military who stood together against this ongoing tyranny by helping us spread the word and awaken our fellow countrymen to the internal threat to our constitutional republic.
You can pre-order Robert Green’s Defending the Constitution Behind Enemy Lines on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.