Honorable Men

“Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare, Act III, Scene 2 from Marc Antony’s speech at Caesar’s funeral:
“…So are they all, all honorable men, “…

Benedict Arnold

Born in Connecticut Jan. 3, 1740, Benedict Arnold owned merchant ships when the American Revolution broke out at Concord and Lexington on April 19, 1775.

Arnold promptly enlisted in the Connecticut Militia with the rank of captain – men of means and/or education were appointed in the early days of the war by their fellows to lead them or were self-appointed.

Arnold’s fellow militiamen elected him captain. His company traveled to Boston to join the growing rag tag Army that George Washington arrived to command soon after the fight we call Bunker Hill that actually took place on nearby Breed’s Hill.

A diligent officer, Arnold moved to the fore quickly, having an instinct for command and an innate understanding for tactics coupled with a broad understanding of strategy. He rose in rank rapidly, renowned for early battlefield successes.

He took part in the 1775 capture of Ft. Ticonderoga when Americans captured vital British artillery. Henry Knox and his men hauled the guns to Boston where the British Army then found itself lying under siege of artillery that had been its own. Knox would rise to be first Secretary of War under President Washington. The famous fort in Kentucky is named for him. Nothing, of course, is named for Arnold.

Arnold directed American forces at the Battle of Ridgefield, Conn. and in 1776 had a major role in the American invasion of Canada, fighting at Quebec and Montreal. The failed Canadian campaign left Arnold with a bad leg wound and rank of major general in the Continental Army.

He recovered and at the second Battle of Saratoga in late 1777 showed bold, decisive leadership as Americans defeated a British army led by General John Burgoyne.

Although Horatio Gates, the commanding American general received credit as hero of Saratoga, it was really Arnold who led the American rush to unbounded victory – a victory so significant it moved the French to enter the war allied to America.

If the French noticed Saratoga, from Arnold’s viewpoint the Americans, especially Washington, did not and failed to acknowledge his glory there. So a grudge began to fester. Believing he should now have a major command, Arnold found his route to promotion and fame thwarted.

Instead, Washington made Arnold commander of Philadelphia in 1780 when the British withdrew after investing the then largest American city for over a year. Arnold took full use of the position, selling British war spoils to his own and the advantage of some of his friends.

Later in the year Arnold moved to West Point as commander. West Point, then a fort, held the key point in a chain of American defensive positions on the Hudson River above New York City. The U.S. Military Academy would not be founded there until 1802.

The long and short of it is that Arnold, disgruntled, feeling and believing himself disrespected, became so aggrieved that he entered negotiations with the British to give them West Point and its associated Hudson defenses.

Such a result would have cut off New England from the rest of the nation and thereby choked off the revolution and the chance for American victory, liberty and nationhood.

Arnold was caught out when the British officer sent to parry with him, Major John Andre, was captured with revealing documents and executed as a spy by order of Washington.

Arnold went over to the British, led 2,000 of their troops against his former countrymen in the ending months of the war in Virginia and fled to exile in London with his young second wife, Peggy.

In later years he had business misadventures in Newfoundland, the Virgin Islands and England, He died in debt, laid to rest without military honors. No one honors a traitor, even those for whom he committed treason.

Benedict Arnold took with him to his grave that in the United States his name is a synonym for treason.

Michael T. Flynn

Born in December 1958 in Middletown, R.I., Michael T. Flynn did not attend West Point instead graduating in 1981 from the University of Rhode Island as a Distinguished Military Graduate of the Reserve Officer Training Corp.

Vast numbers of distinguished, brave career Army officers like Colin Powell have come from the ROTC.

Over the course of his U.S. Army career Flynn achieved several graduate degrees and certifications, including a Master of Arts in National Security and Strategic War Studies from the Naval War College –about as good as it gets in strategic military post-education in the United States.

Commissioned a second lieutenant in military intelligence in 1981, Flynn began a 30 year climb through multiple postings and tours of duty at home and abroad, rising to the rank of lieutenant general in 2011 — culminating in 2012 when President Obama nominated him director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. DIA director is the apex of U.S. military intelligence assignments. Flynn served in that position until 2014, when he took retirement without achieving the coveted fourth star.

Federal law limits the number of generals and admirals and their specific grade level ranks. The law allots only seven four-star slots to the U.S. Army though various legal exceptions result in there now being 11 four-star Army generals on active duty.

It is possible Gen. Flynn’s track would have resulted in a fourth star but a multitude of authoritative reports say he was forced out at DIA because he clashed with his military superiors, namely the joints chiefs of staff and the JCS chairman, and became an internal adversary of Obama administration policy in Syria.

Research describes a private leaked email from Colin Powell that said the cause of Gen. Flynn’s dismissal was that he was “abusive with staff, didn’t listen, worked against policy, bad management…”

The New York Times reported he had a reputation in the upper reaches of U.S. military command for what became known as “Flynn facts”, things the general imagined to be true but were not.

During and after all  this, Flynn emerged as a man with a fearsome, universal hatred of Islam.

So, Flynn left military service bearing a grudge or several grudges.

He founded a consulting firm, the Flynn Intel Group. In 2015 he became associated early with the campaign for President of Donald J. Trump. He became a symbol of the campaign culminating in his appearance at the 2016 Republican National Convention where he led chants of “lock her up, lock her up…” directed at Democratic Party presidential nominee Hilary Clinton.

Trump won the White House because of the peculiar function of the Electoral College and promptly made Flynn national security advisor in one of his first appointments.

Flynn lasted 23 days in the job owing to various allegations and revelations that swirled about him and have since expanded. It is reported he has offered — in return for immunity — to testify in the House and Senate Intelligence Committee Russia investigations and in aide of the FBI investigation of Russian interference in the U.S. election for president.

The general himself in a 2016 interview in another context famously said anyone who seeks immunity must be guilty of a crime.

Time and investigation will determine who did what, when they did it, if it harmed the United States of America and, if it did, how it did so and to what extent.

Time and investigation will reveal whether anyone did any one thing, or several or many things such as to fit the definition of what Benedict Arnold did.