“Utterly Dismayed”: Air Force Engineer Resigns as Dissent Against Gaza War Slowly Spreads Within Military

Sixteen years ago, Riley Livermore enlisted in the Air Force. His path to the military was shaped by his evangelical Christian upbringing and growing up amid the war on terror. His ensuing career as a flight test engineer took him to Israel, where he spent two years doing missile guidance research. And shortly after October 7, he decided he couldn’t continue anymore.

Livermore is “utterly dismayed” by how President Joe Biden and the Department of Defense “has been complicit in the genocide in Gaza,” he told The Intercept. So much so that he is in the final steps of separating from the Air Force, a monthslong process he initiated in late October. Once he officially exits the military, he said, he will never again work in what he describes as the military–industrial complex.

“I don’t want to be working on something that can turn around and be used to slaughter innocent people,” he said. “I think the dissonance just kind of continued to get louder and louder, it’s like ‘I can’t really do this anymore.’”

Livermore joins a burgeoning wave of dissent within the Biden administration and the military over U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza — including nine prominent resignations in recent months; 25-year-old Airman Aaron Bushnell’s self-immolation in February; and a new service member-led campaign to help soldiers speak out against elected officials’ support for Israel’s war.