This analysis is authored by retired four-star general and flag officers who have led at the highest levels.

Their message is clear: safeguarding an apolitical military is essential to national security.

The paper lays out the core pressures threatening the military’ political neutrality and concrete steps to protect an apolitical military:

Public trust in the U.S. military remains high—but it can erode quickly. Recent years have brought new pressures, from domestic deployments to politicized rhetoric, that risk pulling the military into partisan conflict.

The brief also urges the consideration of domestic deployments only as a last resort to avoid adding additional tension to politically fraught situations on the ground. To read the brief, visit 🔗 bit.ly/4hqGzgi

These retired national security leaders urge SCOTUS to consider the risks posed by repeated domestic deployments to the public, the Guard’s mission readiness, and members of the Guard itself.

To date, thousands of troops have been deployed in at least five American communities over the objection of local leaders, with the promise of more. These rising domestic deployments run afoul of our history and traditions.

Read the brief: counteveryhero.org/wp-content/u...

Courts, elected leaders, and the public should judge these deployments with these principles in mind. As the number of politicized domestic deployments increases, risks that the public will lose trust in the military, its readiness will suffer, and our national security will be degraded only rises.

Count Every Hero is opposed to deploying the National Guard over state and local objections in all but the most extreme circumstances. Such deployments could “escalate conflicts that should be resolved through the political process.” bit.ly/3VRSVny

Former service secretaries + retired admirals & generals have noted the risk of such deployments outside of situations “where state and local officials openly defied court orders or refused to protect citizens exercising their constitutional rights.” bit.ly/42sJoqV

Today, Illinois sued the administration to block the administration’s planned deployment of National Guard forces to Chicago over the objections of local and state officials. “We must now start calling this what it is: Trump’s invasion,” said Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. bit.ly/4mRwHgy

To read the brief, visit 🔗 counteveryhero.org/wp-content/u...

The impact is felt beyond DC, in communities where many of the deployed live. “Most Guard members have families and civilian lives that they put on hold when deployed, and employers who may grow frustrated by frequent, months-long absences on politically controversial missions.”

As Guard morale dips & public grows less supportive of the campaign, the “proliferation of domestic deployments of the National Guard for missions outside their core duties also threatens the long-term readiness of the Guard & the U.S. military,” wrote the retired natsec leaders.

The letter was signed by the nonpartisan organizations @counteveryhero.org‬, Secure Families Initiative, @chamberlainvets.bsky.social‬, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Veterans for All Voters, and Secure Democracy USA. Read the letter here: counteveryhero.org/wp-content/u...

We “urge you to veto this bill and instead work toward solutions that respect the service and dignity of all Granite Staters – especially those who have given the most for our country or face the greatest barriers to the ballot box.”

“SB 287 will make it more difficult for military and overseas voters to cast a ballot,” the coalition wrote, noting that the bill would also “weaken local election integrity and place new costly burdens on municipal clerks.”