“While that is true,” Colonel Kristin Parkman asked in a firm yet respectful tone, “do you think that we would be faced with the same situation today?”

Scott smiled as he looked at the commander of his aviation brigade. He could always depend on Colonel Parkman to kick things off. Known as Gun Slinger Six, Kristin was a trained attack helicopter pilot who never hesitated to commit her units to battle or verbally shoot down an errant subordinate. “By a simple show of hands, how many of you in this room,” Scott asked by way of response, “are registered members of the President’s political party?” Throughout the room, only two hands went up hesitantly. “Okay,” Scott continued, “how many belong to the other party?”

This time the hands of well over half the commanders and straphangers shot up. “Okay, thank you,” Scott replied after he saw that his audience had gotten a feel for itself. “As you can see, for one reason or another we do not share the views expressed by our commander-in-chief.”

“That doesn’t mean,” Larry Fisher intoned, “that we wouldn’t follow his orders. If the President pushes the button, we go. It is what we have pledged ourselves to do.”

“While I am sure you are all cock sure what you’d do in a national emergency that pitted Americans against Americans,” John B. Gordon stated, “I cannot say that I could blindly follow our commander-in-chief.” Shifting a bit in his seat so that he was slouched down, Gordon threw his hands out, palms up. “After Albert Sidney Johnson, Bobby Lee was the most respected man in the United States Army. As the Southern states slipped away from the Union, he stood by the oath of office. That is, until his home state, Virginia, left. Always an honorable man, perhaps the last genuine gentleman this nation was to be graced with, he agonized over his solemn oath of commissioning. Yet, as hard as it was for him to go against an oath he had sworn before his God and country, the specter of raising his hand against the state that he and his forefathers had called home was even more frightening. In the end he came down on the side of his native state. Though he had proudly served his nation, it was Virginia that he considered home.”

Gordon paused as he moved about in his seat, as if uncomfortable with what he was about to say. With his face screwed up, he looked straight at Scott. “Let there be no doubt in your mind, sir, which side of the fence I would land on if the President called upon the men and women of my brigade to take up arms against their brethren.”