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It's not a personal judgment for what is a lawful order. It's only a personal judgment whether you follow an order. Soldiers aren't the legal arbiters. The l

• credit_guy 6y ago
  You are absolutely right, of course. What I meant is, as an officer, your assessment whether the order you receive is lawful or not is based on a personal judgment, there is no lookup table you can go and check the legality of the order. In most cases, not obeying an order will result in investigations later on, and the legality will be established by various legal experts.
• craftinator 6y ago
  > It's not a personal judgment for what is a lawful order. As someone who's refused to follow an order because I believed it wasn't lawful, I disagree with you. The UCMJ provides good general guidance over what constitutes a lawful order, but like any legal document, it doesn't cover specifics or edge cases that crop up. This puts military personnel in hairy areas where they have to know what the UCMJ states on the subject of the order, and make a decision whether or not an order is lawful. I know you followed up with "It's only a personal judgment whether you follow an order. Soldiers aren't the legal arbiters.", but what your statement comes down to is that the person following the order needs to decide on the spot whether it's lawful or not, and sometimes may have to argue their decision in a Military Court. This makes them de facto legal arbiters.