If those orders are illegal you have a sworn duty to disobey them.

I understand there will be a lengthy court martial and perhaps many will not win. But if we ever get to the point of holding people accountable for all that is going on (and they better hope it’s us and not some outside forces), they will be held as co-conspirators.

according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

...meaning you're not supposed to obey unlawful orders, which includes anything that violates the US Constitution or the Geneva Convention...

It squares away in the UCMJ. Generic 'You' used throughout, below this point:

You are supposed to have the balls/constitution/wherewithal/spine to disobey an order you believe or know to be illegal, despite the harsh automatic penalties that will presume you guilty until innocent for doing so, as you accept those possible consequences as readily as you accept taking an artillery shell for your country.

You are to hold this inhuman (as in, literally against psychological norm) stance deeper than the other stances programmed (with full use of psychological norms) into you in the course of being shaped for military services during training.

Because you are a warrior and are expected to hold yourself to standards far above and beyond those of the common population that you are (on paper, says every military of everywhere really) sacrificing your service for, so they don't have to.

Does it work?

Eh. Maybe if a standing military was full of the mythical Warrior Poets envisioned by the glories in the marching songs.

They pretty much universally never are, and usually never were except for brief periods fostered by singular individuals as driving forces.

And thus, here we are.

Given what Kegsbreath has been doing to reshape the US military under his toddler level understanding of what a "warrior" is, I wouldn't expect much of the requisite spine to still be enlisted for service for long.

They exist still, and hopefully the ones that are already out, the ones still in, and their neighbors are doing some common sense mathematics, but that is simply not something that can be expected and accounted for, and historically when things get to that point, it's a bad time for everyone regardless.

It squares because the Constitution is supposed to be the supreme law of the land. The people currently occupying these offices come and go.

Me too, but I'll keep trying.

A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit

What the actual fuck?

Would you like me to explain it to you? I swear I can do it better than any AI if you just ask me.