One of the biggest ploys in politics is to construe a question as being and order. More recently Mark Espers, who was briefly Secretary Of Defense in 2020, has come out with a book charging that Trump is unfit based upon Trump asking him if missles could not be used against the drug cartels, a perfectly legitimate question. Espers, as a cabinet member , was asked for his advice & was not being given an order.
And in another meeting with Trump during the violence ensueing immediately after the George Floyd death, Espers says that Trump was seeking to deploy military troops to quell the violence. So he, Espers, took it upon himself to empty armories of guns in case Trump gave the order to activate the troops. That would be premature obstruction of what could have been a direct order given by the President amounting to mutiny. Oh, but he claims Trump asked if he could not shoot the violent protestors, which is again a question, not an order. Certainly Trump would be more aware than Espers of the Kent State affair in the 1970s and the political implications.
So it would seem that Espers twice failed to use his brains, opting to jump to conclusions rather than exercising proper judgment.