Why Today’s Army-Navy Game Is Different

Deploying to US cities is not the mission our soldiers signed up for.

Credit: Protect Democracy / Not The Mission

The Army-Navy college football game kicks off today in Baltimore, marking the 126th time these two storied teams have met. It’s supposed to be a time when we’re getting ready for flyovers, big plays, and decked-out cadets and midshipmen screaming their heads off. But this year’s match-up is taking place in the shadow of a mission our troops did not sign up for: domestic deployment on US soil.

We both served our country, one of us as an enlisted sailor out of high school and the other as a Naval officer, commissioned through the ROTC program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But those distinct paths led to a commitment of service shared by all those in uniform, and a reverence for the oath we swore to protect and defend the Constitution.

Today’s game may pit Army fans against their Navy rivals, but those in uniform know that we don’t serve just one branch of the military, let alone any party or politician. We serve America.

Cadets at midfield at the annual Army-Navy game. Credit: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

So as we cheer today (go Navy!), we will do so knowing that many of our fellow service members are currently being put in an impossible situation. The domestic deployments of US soldiers to Portland, Washington DC, Chicago, Los Angeles, and more represent a fundamental shift away from the centuries-old commitment to the idea that the military should not be used as a political force against the citizenry. Domestic deployments are not a game, and they have an impact on real people’s lives—our service members, their families, the hometowns they’ve left behind, and the inhabitants of those cities where they’ve been sent.

Thankfully, these deployments remain deeply unpopular. A critical mass of the American people recognize them for what they are: an attempt to use our nonpartisan, trusted military not to serve us all but to divide us, coming as they are largely against the wishes of local elected officials and law enforcement agencies. Deploying our troops into American cities, whether to allegedly combat crime or to demonstrate a show of force, is sparking a major backlash among citizens, majorities of whom believe local law enforcement is best positioned to fight crime.

These assignments would have triggered alarm among our Founders, who fought to rid our nation of a military occupation and royal dictatorship. Upon declaring America’s independence from England, troops in the Continental Army swore an oath to defend the country against “King George, his heirs and successors, and his and their abettors, assistants, and adherents.” But the oath would soon change. After the first meeting of Congress in 1789, the oath was updated to make allegiance to the recently ratified Constitution paramount. That is the oath we swore.

The Constitution is our holiest secular document, the charter that marked the beginning of a new era of self-government, of protected individual liberties, helping to usher in unprecedented prosperity for our nation. And the rule of law enshrined by that document helped to establish significant barriers against turning the American military against Americans. This helps explain why the US military remains one of the most trusted institutions in our country.

But those safeguards are now in jeopardy as more deployments are threatened without just, legal cause. There are significant perils to politicizing our military in this way, not least degrading its readiness to respond to national security threats and undermining public trust in the institution. If this course continues, our military risks being irreparably politicized—rendering our nation vulnerable from within and without.

Midshipmen cheer at the Army-Navy game. Credit: US Department of State

Our troops have an honorable mission: to protect national security and defend the Constitution, to which they swore an oath. They serve all Americans, and understand what makes our country worth defending. The mission is to defend all of us, not divide us. The mission is to preserve our freedoms, not to provoke fear. The mission is to serve the Constitution, not politics.

Put simply: Troops on our streets is not the mission.

That’s why our organization, Protect Democracy, has helped launch “Not The Mission,” a six-figure educational effort targeted to those watching today’s Army-Navy game. It will remind those watching that for over 200 years, our military has been an apolitical and trusted fighting force; that the military’s role is not domestic law enforcement, except under the most exceptional and extreme circumstances defined by law; and that this strict separation in both law and tradition comes from a longstanding recognition that neither the military nor the American people are served by frequent domestic deployments.

As soldiers, we are trained to defend, not divide. The reality today is that the military is being used as a force for division. To travel further down this road, seeing already the tension it has created among the civilian public and service members alike, would be to court disaster for America’s proud legacy of military excellence. And it would be antithetical to the virtues that both the Navy and Army seek to instill in the young people who will be playing in today’s game, and the thousands who will be looking on in their dress uniforms.

We will be cheering hard for our team today, as always. But we also know that all of us are ultimately on one team. We are all Americans, always stronger united than divided. And our military serves all of us, not some of us. It must always be that way.

Kyle Miller leads Protect Democracy’s advocacy work in Pennsylvania and contributes to domestic deployment issue development. He is an enlisted combat zone veteran of the US Navy. Fletcher Tove is Protect Democracy’s Security Strategist. He is a former Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy.

Not The Mission educates the public on the historic and legal uses of our military, and the founding values of our republic. It is a non-partisan effort by and for the military family and veterans’ communities, with the support of the non-profit Protect Democracy.