Could Sisco have just up and quit like that in the middle of a war??
I don't think active members of the military in the midst of a life and death struggle could just quit and go peel potatoes at a restaurant??
shareThat did seem a bit odd, but there have been other times when people have resigned or threatened to resign from Starfleet.
shareSome military organizations have allowed officers to resign even when those officers were expected to join the enemy forces!
They asked a similar question about the movie They Died With their Boots On (1941) depicting southern cadets at West Point being allowed to resign and go south even though many of them would fight for the Confederacy.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034277/board/thread/115867489
In real life not only were southern cadets allowed to resign, but southern born officers were allowed to resign if they had completed their required years of service - commissioned officers were required to serve for a few years.
High ranking officers who resigned and joined the Rebels included Colonel and Adjutant General Samuel Cooper, Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, Brigadier General and Quartermaster General Joseph E. Johnston, Brigadier General David E. "Traitor" Twiggs, and of course Robert E. Lee.
Fortunately such leading southern born officers as Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs, Winfield Scott, and George Thomas remained loyal.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, 296 U.S. Army officers of various grades resigned. Of these, 239 joined the Confederate Army in 1861 and 31 joined after 1861. Of these Confederate officers from the U.S. Army, 184 were United States Military Academy graduates. The other active U.S. Army 809 officers, 640 of whom were West Point graduates, remained with the Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_Civil_War_generals
Many officers in the Union and Confederate armies resigned during the four years of the war for various reasons.
I have also heard that when World War One broke out in 1914 the Austro Hungarian army gave foreign born officers from neutral and even enemy nations the chance to resign if they wished.
So that is not just an eccentric American practice. share