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Subconcious - sometimes you scare me a little.
I was the commandant of a military academy. There had been a disaster of some sort that about 10 of my cadets had been caught up in. People had died. They weren't directly responsible for the disaster - more like they were stupid and got themselves used as pawns. They deserved to be punished - something like expulsion would have been appropriate. But the people who were responsible were protected politically, and the public was baying for blood. There were enough politicians and military people in the pockets of the people actually responsible that they had managed to ram through sentances at a tribunal instead of a proper trial. The five kids most responsible were getting 250 lashes a piece, under some archaic military law no one usually invoked anymore, and the rest were getting a smaller number of lashes.
I was heading across campus to the press conference that was going to precede basically beating these kids to death on national television. My second-in-command and the governor were with me. The governor could have stopped this, and I'd begged him to, and he was more interested in getting the political capital for being "tough". I handed an envelope to my second-in-command, that basically contained instructions on how to handle things when he was acting commandant. He realized what I was about to do and asked me what I thought I was doing. I replied, "I'm resigning in protest, via committing suicide on national television." The governor figured it out, and ordered me to stop. I sweetly told my CO to add 25 lashes to the total for insubordination and 50 for refusing to obey a direct order. He threatened to have me arrested. I reminded him that he was on military grounds and thus out of his jurisdiction - my MPs were the ones with the ability to arrest people, and they weren't arresting anyone today.
You see, there was a standing tradition that the Commandant could take on a punishment in lieu of a cadet. It was supposed to be used for something like "no dinner for you", as kind of a humiliation - you're not even worthy of the punishment. (I don't know - it made sense at the time.)
I was supposed to give a short speech at the press conference before they started the whippings. I went up and gave this incredibly eloquent speech that of course I don't remember. It was something along the lines of "I'm a simple soldier and I don't understand these politics things", and then a short and devastating analysis of why the people who were actually responsible were getting away without any repercussions and how they used their influence to stick the pawns with an inappropriate and barbaric punishment. I had been told though, that we needed a scapegoat, and that the public demanded that someone be punished. But clearly we could not punish such outstanding members of our community. However, punishing the cadets would not actually punish the people responsible - since I was their commanding officer, clearly I was responsible for their actions. Thus, I was invoking this tradition and commuting their sentances to one lash a piece, while I would take the remaining total.
The beatings started, and then the dream cut away to the White House, where the president was meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff when an aide rushed in and told them what was happening. He was inclined to let this continue, since he was also unwilling to punish the people actually responsible. But the Joint Chiefs announced they were resigning en masse and on their way to the press room to explain why they had done so. So he reluctantly called and gave a blanket pardon to everyone.
At that point, I wasn't dead yet, but in really bad shape, so they rushed me to the hospital. Upon which I woke up.
What. The. Hell. It's like a horror movie crashed into JAG, all in my unconcious brain. Yay, being a martyr is fun! What's wrong with you, brain?
I was the commandant of a military academy. There had been a disaster of some sort that about 10 of my cadets had been caught up in. People had died. They weren't directly responsible for the disaster - more like they were stupid and got themselves used as pawns. They deserved to be punished - something like expulsion would have been appropriate. But the people who were responsible were protected politically, and the public was baying for blood. There were enough politicians and military people in the pockets of the people actually responsible that they had managed to ram through sentances at a tribunal instead of a proper trial. The five kids most responsible were getting 250 lashes a piece, under some archaic military law no one usually invoked anymore, and the rest were getting a smaller number of lashes.
I was heading across campus to the press conference that was going to precede basically beating these kids to death on national television. My second-in-command and the governor were with me. The governor could have stopped this, and I'd begged him to, and he was more interested in getting the political capital for being "tough". I handed an envelope to my second-in-command, that basically contained instructions on how to handle things when he was acting commandant. He realized what I was about to do and asked me what I thought I was doing. I replied, "I'm resigning in protest, via committing suicide on national television." The governor figured it out, and ordered me to stop. I sweetly told my CO to add 25 lashes to the total for insubordination and 50 for refusing to obey a direct order. He threatened to have me arrested. I reminded him that he was on military grounds and thus out of his jurisdiction - my MPs were the ones with the ability to arrest people, and they weren't arresting anyone today.
You see, there was a standing tradition that the Commandant could take on a punishment in lieu of a cadet. It was supposed to be used for something like "no dinner for you", as kind of a humiliation - you're not even worthy of the punishment. (I don't know - it made sense at the time.)
I was supposed to give a short speech at the press conference before they started the whippings. I went up and gave this incredibly eloquent speech that of course I don't remember. It was something along the lines of "I'm a simple soldier and I don't understand these politics things", and then a short and devastating analysis of why the people who were actually responsible were getting away without any repercussions and how they used their influence to stick the pawns with an inappropriate and barbaric punishment. I had been told though, that we needed a scapegoat, and that the public demanded that someone be punished. But clearly we could not punish such outstanding members of our community. However, punishing the cadets would not actually punish the people responsible - since I was their commanding officer, clearly I was responsible for their actions. Thus, I was invoking this tradition and commuting their sentances to one lash a piece, while I would take the remaining total.
The beatings started, and then the dream cut away to the White House, where the president was meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff when an aide rushed in and told them what was happening. He was inclined to let this continue, since he was also unwilling to punish the people actually responsible. But the Joint Chiefs announced they were resigning en masse and on their way to the press room to explain why they had done so. So he reluctantly called and gave a blanket pardon to everyone.
At that point, I wasn't dead yet, but in really bad shape, so they rushed me to the hospital. Upon which I woke up.
What. The. Hell. It's like a horror movie crashed into JAG, all in my unconcious brain. Yay, being a martyr is fun! What's wrong with you, brain?
