Thousands of active-duty service members have failed to comply Biden Administration’s Kovid-19 Vaccine Mandate, increasing the likelihood that they would be forced to leave their positions or the army altogether.
Vaccination deadlines for active-duty members of the armed services passed for air force, Navy and Marine Corps. The Army deadline is December 15.
Despite the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate, about 27,000 members of the Marines, Air Force, Space Force and Navy are still considered illiterate. The Army’s roughly 19,000 soldiers have yet to initiate protocol and have only a week left before that branch’s deadline.
An army officer with knowledge of the matter emphasized that the records are continuing to be updated and that the commanders are keeping their soldiers informed of their vaccination status.
“From my point of view, it’s a discipline issue,” said retired army lieutenant general David Barno, who leads the coalition forces in Afghanistan. “You have thousands of soldiers who are essentially refusing a legal order to get a vaccine – I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s very disturbing.”
The mandate has worked. Since Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin requires military personnel to receive the vaccine on August 25, an additional 21 percent of the active duty military are fully vaccinated, the Defense Department reported.
However, Barno emphasized that even a small number of unvaccinated service members undermine the entire force.
“It’s definitely a negative in terms of overall military preparedness,” he said. “Even just 3 or 4 percent means thousands of soldiers have not been vaccinated, which means they are extremely vulnerable to the virus and much more than anywhere in the world where the virus is spreading.” are non-deployable.”
What comes next for these members of the armed services who have not received the vaccine remains an open question.
The Marine Corps has been most candid about the results Service members who do not receive the vaccine.
Its policy states that any active duty Marine “who has not received the last vaccination dose by November 14 is considered unvaccinated. All non-exemptions pending or approved administrative exemptions, medical exemptions, or religious accommodations, or without an appeal.” Vaccinated Marines will be processed in administrative isolation.”
Such separation or leave may mean that members of the Marines and other services cannot receive veterans’ benefits. They may also be required to pay certain bonuses or education benefits received during their service.
So far, no Marines have been discharged, but that may soon change. It is difficult to get permanent discount in any service branch.
The Marine Corps has so far provided only 15 permanent medical exemptions for the COVID vaccine. More than 2,400 Marines applied for religious exemptions, but as of Monday none of the 2,009 processed had been approved.
With 95% of the Marine Corps being partially or fully vaccinated, however, this leaves about 9,000 Marines who could be headed for “administrative isolation”.
While vaccination rates for the Air Force, Space Force and Navy are high—all close to 97 percent—the thousands of airmen, guardians and sailors who remain without vaccinations may also see their military careers come to an end.
“If you’re going to refuse a vaccine, you’re going to fail your shipyard, you’re going to fail your war friends, you’re going to fail your fellow airmen,” said a retired Navy admiral and Said James Stavaridis, a former Supreme Allied Commander for NATO. “I see this as a necessity. Although we will lose some people who are otherwise good at their jobs, I think we are overall better equipped to implement this mandate.”
The largest branch of the military, the U.S. Army, has had 96 percent vaccinations as of December 2, when it last reported vaccination data.
Army spokesman Lt Col Terence Kelly said the decision to mandate the Army and Army vaccine was to ensure soldiers were ready to enter the field at a moment’s notice.
“The COVID-19 vaccine is a readiness issue for the military: our units and troops must be deployed and ready to fight. Required vaccinations are nothing new for the US military,” he said.
Unaffiliated soldiers in leadership positions will be released from their positions, Kelly said, and soldiers who refuse the vaccine without an approved waiver will receive a note of reprimand on their record and be “flagged” Meaning they cannot get promotion or transfer. and will be barred from re-recruiting.
He said the soldiers may also face non-judicial and judicial punishment and may be discharged from the army.
Distance reduction is another issue: the National Guard and Reserves.
Austin ordered that All members of National Guard and Reserve also receive COVID vaccination Or lose pay and be banned from practice and training. Missing practice can lead to demotion and release from the force.
Republican governors, specifically Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, who last week Filed suit against Defense Department over vaccine mandatehas threatened to make these mandates a political issue.
The deadline for the Air National Guard and Reserve has passed, but members of the Army National Guard and Reserve are not required to be fully vaccinated until June 2022.
Both Barno and Stavridis consider the long history of vaccination in the military. Barno said he had received “a billion vaccines in my military career” and Stavridis noted that he had received nine anthrax vaccine shots during the Gulf War.
“There are a lot of vaccinations involved in being in service that you would never encounter in civilian life, and that’s part and parcel in the military,” Barno said. “Everybody largely recognizes this.”
Both agreed that any service member who refuses the Kovid vaccine should be separated from the army.
Stavridis, however, remained optimistic that the military would see a rapid increase in vaccinations once members of the military realized the stakes of the denial, especially as anything less than an honorable discharge from the military would drag on careers within and outside the armed forces. could.
“I think when people are faced with choices like this, I estimate that eventually, 99 percent of the force will be vaccinated,” he said. “Can we deal with a loss of 1 percent? Yes, we can. And in the end, we’ll be more capable because of it.”