He quietly urged other military personnel to reflect on their own positions. “They should be confident in questioning possibly immoral or illegal orders,” he said, “remembering they are responsible for their own actions, and knowing others are asking the same questions.”
“If they have doubts about their orders, they are not alone,”
And if instead, he later said “I didn’t want to do these bad things, but I had to play the part, because if I left someone worse would replace me!” then the comments would also say he’s part of the problem.
His choices are lose/lose, we made sure of that.