Last week when the New York Times published an anonymous op-ed by a senior Trump administration official describing his part in an internal White House resistance movement to “frustrate” parts of President Trump’s agenda, the author framed the subversion as a matter of duty and honor.
“We believe our first duty is to this country,” the author wrote, “and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.”
The author called Trump amoral, erratic, and unmoored from conservative principles and common decency. The author believes he and other “unsung heroes” in the White House are obligated to obstruct the president to restore “honor to public life and our national dialogue.”
[Trump: New York Times, unnamed Trump administration official ‘gutless’ for anonymous opinion piece]
But the author seems to misunderstand the concepts of duty and honor. The article comes across as self-serving and self-righteous. Its publication is at odds with the author’s stated goal of restoring the nation. The op-ed’s primary effect will be to compound the chaos in the White House and undermine the republic and the people’s will by thwarting their duly elected president.
For a better understanding of those concepts, Anonymous should read the new book by H.W. Crocker III called Armstrong. Armstrong refers to George Armstrong Custer, the celebrated Civil War hero and cavalry officer who died at the Battle of Little Bighorn.
In Crocker’s alternative telling, Custer survives that battle, and the story begins as Custer is taken unconscious from the battlefield and enslaved by the Sioux Indians. From there, Crocker’s Custer, a milk-drinking, sharp-shooting master of disguises, takes us on a series of uproarious adventures in the persona of Armstrong.
Duty and honor, the reader soon discovers, are Armstrong’s guiding principles.
After his life is spared by the Sioux, Custer vows never again to kill an Indian. But then he ponders the “deep philosophical question” of whether to set aside that promise to protect a woman in his charge. “I had to decide where my duty lay,” he writes. Drawing on his Catholic faith, Armstrong concludes that he isn’t bound to keep his promise because it was “wrested from me under the compulsion of the Boyanama Sioux.”
“I would kill no Indian,” he decides, “unless it was to save her.”
Armstrong is an extraordinary hero— a military strategist, a courageous fighter and some sort of dog whisperer to boot. He’s also a dashing romantic with a knack for making women swoon.
But although he is an incorrigible flirt, Armstrong remains faithful to his beloved wife, Libbie. Armstrong is written as a letter to Libbie, whom Armstrong clearly adores but doesn’t seem to mind risking making jealous. “It was a moment to savor,” Armstrong writes about an encounter with an attractive young woman he’s befriended, “and as our eyes locked I could think only of the rapture you would have felt if you could have been a part of it.”
As you can see, “Armstrong” is also funny, and never more so than when he’s reflecting on his own good fortune. “I couldn’t imagine such an accommodation in the white world,” Armstrong writes about the lucky situation he found himself after his capture by the Sioux. “You kill a man’s son, you become a slave to his daughter-in-law, and you get inducted as the old man’s blood brother. No one can deny the Indians have their points.”
At a time when duty, honor, and physical courage seem like outdated concepts, “Armstrong” restores them. Our protagonist is determined to protect the honor of several women in his charge. And at one point he reflects on the duty he felt in fighting to preserve the Union during the Civil War.
The story culminates with Armstrong and a motley team that includes a group of Chinese acrobats, a strongman, and a magician trying to liberate an entire town from enslavement by a federal contractor. I won’t reveal the ending, but it involves a rescue mission that’s straight out of Greek mythology.
After completing his mission, Armstrong doesn’t allow himself even a few minutes respite. “I cannot tarry,” he announces as the story closes. “[D]uty calls me elsewhere.”
Armstrong is the first in The Custer of the West Series. I’ll look forward to finding out where duty calls Armstrong next.
Daniel Allott (@DanielAllott) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the author of Trump’s America and former deputy commentary editor at the Washington Examiner.
