As a soldier for more than 38 years, I cannot imagine being ordered into the streets of America to use military force against protesters. The country I served is becoming unrecognizable. We need to slow down and take stock.

We must acknowledge we are in a fight for the soul of this nation. I have devoted nearly four decades of service to this nation, and I spent most of my life a Republican, so it gives me no pleasure to say this. Yet change must come.

I am a native Pittsburgher. One of the things I most appreciate about the city is its abiding belief that service to the greater good is more important than personal glory. This is, after all, a city that idolizes Roberto Clemente, a man who died delivering humanitarian aid. It was in that vein that, in 1969, I took a solemn oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” From my initial tour as a combat nurse in Vietnam to my last assignment in the Pentagon where I oversaw the coordination of our chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense programs, my country was my cause.

I now fear for the soul of my country, my life’s work. And as I watched our troops deploy against those who were exercising their First Amendment right, a right we are sworn to uphold, the right to peaceful assembly, I was deeply alarmed. Our soldiers are trained to protect our country from our enemies. We use military force as a last resort — and we use it to protect Americans, not harm them. Why then would our president, our commander in chief, order troops to take up arms against our sons and daughters in the streets of America?

That is a threat to our nation’s soul.

But don’t just take it from me. Take it from former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who said, “Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict — a false conflict — between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect.” He’s just one of dozens of senior military officials who have spoken out to denounce this domestic deployment.

Former senior military officials like me have a code that we do not weigh in on politics or speak against a sitting president. That so many rock-jawed, disciplined men and women are going against that code and speaking out shows the depth of their concern. They believe the very idea of America is at risk.

It is not purely the president’s fault that America’s is facing such a core threat to its character. As the protesters themselves have made clear, the racial inequities that plague America predate his presidency by nearly 400 years.

Yet our president has made the threat to America’s soul more acute. The past few months – between a pandemic and national protests — have underlined deep leadership failures from our current White House.

Preserving America’s soul means the nation must change. It must grapple with the inequities in society. It means recognizing that America’s troops do not belong on American streets attacking their fellow Americans who are peacefully demonstrating. It means making the conscious choice to feel empathy toward one another again. It means, like I did so many years ago, swearing an oath to an ideal — not a person — far greater than ourselves.

And yes, it means change in November. Joe Biden can bring people together. And, in the words of Mattis, our current president does not even pretend to try.

Donna Barbisch is a retired U.S. Army major general and CEO of Wicked Solutions, a consultancy for leadership and decision-making in disasters and complex conflicts.

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