Before I get to the core of today’s column, my outrage at a president calling for the execution of sitting members of Congress, I’d like to tell you a little bit about how we go about launching intercontinental ballistic missiles, you know, ICBMs, nukes, the big bombs (Editor: really?).

Having sat nuclear alert during my first Air Force assignment I am quite sure though some details may have changed since I left the nuclear world, the basics remain roughly the same.

When a president wants to launch nukes, a message is sent to the various nuclear weapon control authorities, including potentially me underground back in the early to mid 1980s. And can you guess the very first thing we needed to do after getting such a message? We had to make sure it was an authentic message. I’m not going to talk about how we did that, of course, but we ensured beyond any doubt we received a lawful order (Ed: I see what you did there).

Yup, we had to make sure we had lawful orders from the actual commander with the authority to launch our weapons. We were required, if someone tried to, say, send a fake or illegal launch order, to disregard the illegal order. This was the absolute core of the launch business: lawful orders.

And that’s all I’m going to say about launching nukes.

Instead, I want to turn to a recent series of Colorado Politics stories about the famous advertisement recently that featured a number of Democratic legislators, who were also military veterans, talking to the troops about the need to disobey illegal orders.

Stunningly, our deeply flawed and rather foolish president took to his personal social media to decry and disparage those legislators to the point he called for their arrest and, as I’m sure you’ve seen, execution.

And what those backing the president are seemingly always glossing over is the word “illegal” that appeared in the advertisement. Military personnel were merely being reminded they were not required to obey illegal orders. Heck, it goes much farther than that in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the UCMJ, which is the set of laws and regulations military members function under. Military folks are required by our own military law to ignore illegal orders.

Back when I was teaching political science and the Constitution at the Air Force Academy, we had lessons dedicated to teaching this concept. My usual example (given that it was during the Iraq war) was to give my students a hypothetical: they were flying a bombing mission over Iraq when anti-aircraft fire started coming up from the ground. In my scenario, they were able to identify the source of the fire as an AA battery sitting on top of a hospital. What, I asked the cadets, must they do?

Happily, they nearly always got it right: they had to avoid bombing the hospital. Or school, or mosque, whichever I gave as my story’s example. Part of the burden of being the “good guys” in a fight, I told them, is the need to do the right thing, even in the face of evil acts or war crimes.

I thought about those lessons when I saw the lies spewing from POTUS this week. First of all, I do think he is dim enough to not really understand the difference between legal and illegal orders. But even now, after I’m sure whatever sycophantic “advisors” still around him have warned him, he continues the drumbeat of death for elected officials who oppose him.

And again, what those Democrats said was the equivalent of a cop telling a drivers education class not to run red lights.

I admit being particularly angry because one of the people attacked is a friend of mine. I’ve known Jason Crow for quite a while now, and he’s the real deal. A former Army Ranger with multiple combat tours, Jason walks the walk, unlike a certain person with “bone spurs.” Jason and his colleagues were reminding the troops (and, frankly the American public) we are dangerously close to even more illegal actions being taken by this administration.

And so, I ask, do those who now yelp about the Dems commercial truly believe even illegal orders must be followed? Let’s say it is a few years in the future, and a Democrat (Jason maybe? It could happen) occupies the presidency, shall that president be unchecked if he orders the arrest of all the former members of the Trump cabinet? Or shall we reaffirm illegal orders are illegal?

The UCMJ, under which military folks operate, is far more strict than “regular” U.S. law. Heck, under the UCMJ, adultery is still a crime, though they changed the term to “extramarital sexual contact” for some reason. According to UCMJ Articles 90 and 92, military personnel are specifically required to ignore orders that are “patently illegal” or “manifestly unlawful,” and the code further notes “just following orders” offers no defense when the orders are illegal.

If you have yet to listen to the audio recordings released by Crow, I suggest you do it. Though Trump may claim to not really mean death, his outrageous rhetoric might well inflame some “true believer” who might then feel violence is the proper next step. You can hear some somewhat sanitized recordings here. The actual recordings, which were briefly available, are far more violent and, well, sick.

It is deeply unfortunate the Democratic legislators felt the need to remind troops illegal orders are not to be followed, and it is far more unfortunate a president would react from his gut with death threats. As Trump’s various approval numbers continue to fall, and as more and more Americans are troubled by the ICE roundups, which sometimes have included American citizens who “looked” different, I worry we’ll see more and more unhinged actions from the White House. Stay tuned.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.