Conduct Unbecoming: The Attack on Barry Moore Insults Every National Guardsman

Opinion by: Major Bryan Taylor, USA, Retired

"Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman," as described in the U.S. Manual for Courts Martial, is conduct so dishonorable or disgraceful that it compromises an officer’s professional standing or his ability to command the discipline of his troops.

For an officer on active duty, it’s a crime. It includes things like making a false official statement or insulting or defaming a fellow officer.

So it seems a fitting label, even if not criminal, for any below-the-belt political attack by one veteran against another’s honorable service record, especially when the insult comes packaged in a polished, high-profile TV ad.

That is exactly what happened in the U.S. Senate race this week, when a political action committee supporting former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson launched an attack ad targeting Congressman Barry Moore's service in the Alabama National Guard.

According to official military records, Moore served honorably in the Alabama Army National Guard and Army Reserve, including during Operation Desert Storm. The conflict ended, though, before Moore had an opportunity to be deployed to the combat zone. That fact neither diminishes Moore’s patriotism nor justifies the campaign to smear it.

I say that not only as a retired National Guardsman, but as an Iraq War veteran. And as someone who deeply admires Jared Hudson’s heroic service and would like to vote for him one day in another race—I think Hudson should be saying the same thing.

I deployed to Iraq in 2003 with the 17th Field Artillery Brigade, the active-duty Army unit to which I was assigned as a young captain. I was a full-time soldier, but even then, I respected the weight of our nation's reliance on the citizen-soldiers of the Guard and Reserve who served alongside us. Nearly 600,000 Guardsmen and Reservists were deployed to combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of them never expected to mobilize for war, but they were ready and willing, thankfully, when the call came.

We all fought the same enemy, traveled the same roads seeded with roadside bombs, breathed the same toxic air from the same burn pits—and we always had each other's backs. Because that's how a band of brothers is supposed to behave.

Those citizen-soldiers were every bit as much my brothers (and sisters) in arms as the soldiers who wore the same active-duty insignia I did. Their service and patriotism left such an impression on me that when my active-duty commitment ended, I joined the Alabama National Guard and served until retirement.

The overblown ad accuses Moore of "stolen valor," questions his patriotism, and labels his service "dishonest, disgraceful, and disqualifying" because he never deployed into combat. Those words belong nowhere near a man who enlisted, trained, and was honorably discharged after years in the Guard and Reserves.

I am not alone in that view. On Thursday, WVTM 13, Birmingham's NBC affiliate, pulled the ad from the air. When a television station reviews the facts and decides an attack ad doesn't meet even the minimum standard to keep running, that says all that needs to be said about the legitimacy of the attack. If we are going to talk about what is dishonest, disgraceful, and disqualifying, let us talk about an ad so lacking in honor—so unbecoming—that a broadcaster pulled it just eight days
before an election.

The measure of a soldier is not whether the orders to deploy ever came. It is whether he raised his hand, took the oath, trained for the call, and stood ready to go when his country needed him. Based on the record, Moore did just that. So have all the citizen-soldiers whose service is indirectly smeared by this negative campaign.

In some ways, members of the National Guard and Reserves carry the heavier load. The active-duty soldier lives and breathes the mission every day, and draws a full-time salary to do it. Morning workout? He's on the clock. Chow time? Just another part of the duty day.

The Guardsman, on the other hand, juggles a dual role and the additional demands of civilian life: a job, civic commitments, and sometimes a business with employees who depend on him. When the call comes, he drops all of it. He leaves the job, locks the shop, kisses his family goodbye, and goes.

And not just in wartime. He responds on short notice to natural disasters here at home—tornadoes, snowstorms, hurricanes—heck, even a pandemic. He is called on to help neighbors on the worst days of their lives.

That is not lesser service. That is service with a civilian's sacrifice stacked on top of a soldier's.

The real insult of this negative ad campaign is not to Barry Moore. When Moore's campaign called the attacks an assault on the roughly 30,000 Alabamians serving in the Guard and Reserves, he was right. You cannot tell a man his Guard service doesn't really count, and pretend you are only talking about one candidate. Every Guardsman in this state heard that message loud and clear.

"Conduct unbecoming" is not just a figure of speech. It is a fitting description for a wartime veteran’s failure to disavow a political ad that trades on his service to question the sacrifice and patriotism of so many others.

Bryan Taylor is a former Republican state senator, a retired Army JAG Corps prosecutor, and a Bronze Star Medal recipient for service in the Iraq War.

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