Exit, voice, and loyalty
By 
A friend who has a fairly high ranking administrative position in the military — I think he’s about 15 years in, so pretty close to good pension benefits — is looking for feedback on his dilemma.
BTW, he adds “if it’s not this, it’ll be something else. So I’m not as wrapped up in the specific issue at hand as the general framework for thinking about this.”
Curious if you have any thoughts, or if you want to throw some version of this open to your readers (keeping the source vague)
The order requiring the administrative discharge of transgender service members just came out. It’s pretty expansive and while it does allow for a request for exemptions, I doubt many will be granted.
To put it mildly, this is not a policy I agree with personally. I do not believe it serves any useful purpose for the military, will in fact be harmful to national defense by removing thousands of qualified members at a time when recruiting shortfalls are common, and is not motivated by any kind of legitimate concern.
But, we will be instructed to carry it out. There’s no hiding from this either. Our office processes discharges, and the leadership signs off on legal reviews, stating whether each is “legally sufficient.”
In one sense, this is good that there’s no avoiding it. A secondary or tertiary reason I joined is that we have a massive impact worldwide, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill. Most of us can avoid ever seeing or confronting those consequences. I felt that one good thing about joining the military would be that I could be involved. I’d see what we did, have a hand in it, but above all else be engaged with it. That hasn’t quite been true so far, given the massive size of the DoD and administrative nature of our work. But, at least in this respect, the rubber is meeting the road.
I’m conflicted. There’s good reason to stay. Aside from the personal ones, you want good people to hold the line, do what they can, and keep the flame burning. If they want us gone, we should want to stay. But you’ve also got to actually do what you can. It doesn’t help if you stick around to do the right thing if you don’t do the right thing.
Do you flatly disobey orders? Work within the system to cushion the blows? Do you just punch out?
In the global sense I know right from wrong here. In the tactical sense, I’m at a loss on how to approach this.
Thoughts?