Posts filed under ‘World War CV’
WORLD WAR CV: Congress Makes Pentagon Drop Mandatory COVID Vaccination Order
VACCINATION MANDATE ENDS.
(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Jackson Adkins)
Sixteen months after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a mandate, with White House approval, that all members of the armed forces had to be vaccinated against COVID-19, Congress has passed legislation forcing the Pentagon to end the requirement.
The $857.9 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the 2023 fiscal year (from October 1, 2022 to September 30, 2023) was passed by Congress in late 2022 and signed into law by President Joe Biden December 23, 2022. The act includes language that requires the defense secretary to rescind the mandate, which had sparked complaints from lawmakers and lawsuits from service members.
Austin and the heads of all the services said the vaccination mandate was necessary to protect the force and maintain readiness to defend the American people. While the vast majority armed service members — more than 2 million — have gotten fully vaccinated, thousands more either refused to get the jab or sought administrative or religious exemption to the vaccination requirement. Just a few received religious accommodation, and thousands were separated from the services when their appeals ran out.
That led to several lawsuits. A federal judge in Texas certified a class action by Sailors, mostly Navy SEALS, seeking a religious exemption and issued a preliminary injunction March 30, 2022 halting separation for members of the class. A similar injunction was issued against the Marine Corps on August 18, 2022 by a federal judge in Florida. A coalition of more than 20 state attorneys general filed an amicus brief before the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals, supporting the religious liberty claims of Navy SEALs seeking exemptions from the mandatory vaccination requirement in the Texas case. Lower courts also blocked the services from separating vaccine refusers.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing April 7, 2022. (Defense Department photo by Lisa Ferdinando)
A protracted legal fight was derailed under pressure to get the annual defense bill passed, and an amendment pushed by a group of Senate Republicans requiring a halt to the mandate was approved.
“The department will fully comply with the law,” Defense department officials said, adding the Pentagon “remains committed to the health and safety of the force and to ensuring we are ready to execute our mission at all times.”
The legislation stopped short of requiring the Pentagon to reinstate troops who were dismissed for refusing the shot. It also did not mention giving them back pay, POLITICO noted, but “Austin’s memo opened the door to reinstating troops who believe they were wrongfully let go, stipulating that service members and veterans may apply to correct their records.”
Pentagon Press Secretary right now, we are not currently pursuing back-pay to service members who were dismissed for refusing to take the COVID vaccination.”
The Navy’s Take
Following a speech last week (January 11) at the Surface Navy Association annual symposium in Virginia, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro was asked about the impact the end of mandatory vaccination, the Navy League’s SEAPOWER website reported.
Before the 2023 legislation passed, Del Toro expressed concerns that a repeal of the vaccine mandate might lead to potential movement restrictions. “It will create almost two classes of citizens in our services – those that can’t deploy and those that can deploy,” he said on December 6.
Del Toro told reporters the Navy Department had followed Austin’s directive, but he expected additional guidance from the Pentagon.
Asked if he anticipated any short-term problems absent specific guidance, Del Toro said, “No, I think the majority of service members, across all services, quite frankly, get the COVID vaccination whether they’re told to, or not.”
“I suspect that a lot of people who wanted to leave the military, perhaps, did not go down that path [vaccination], so they could leave the military, perhaps before their contract expired,” Del Toro said.
WORLD WAR CV: COVID-19 Vaccination Remains a Difficult Issue for the Sea Services
GETTING TO THE JAB.
On August 24th 2021, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin determined that requiring COVID-19 vaccination for all members of the military was necessary to protect the force and maintain readiness to defend the American people.
In the year since Austin made vaccination mandatory with President Joe Biden’s approval, the vast majority of people in uniform — nearly 2 million — have gotten fully vaccinated. As of September 7, the latest Defense Department COVID-19 statistics, 1 million, 996 thousand service members have been fully vaccinated, including 909, 699 in r the Army, 387,535 in the Navy, 200,532 in the Marine Corps and 498,541 for the Air Force and Space Force combined. More than 28,000 are considered partially vaccinated — meaning those who have received at least one dose of a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine series.
Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Henry Beaty administers a COVID-19 booster shot aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge on March 23, 2022. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jesse Schwab)
However, thousands more either refused to get the jab or sought administrative or religious exemption to the vaccination requirement. While hundreds have been granted administrative exemption from vaccination, but just a few have received religious accommodation. That has led led to several lawsuits.
Almost 5,000 Sailors and Marines have been separated from the sea services since late 2021 for vaccination refusal. The Navy has received 4,251 requests for religious accommodation, the Marines 3,733. Less than 100 have been approved. However, a federal judge in Texas certified a class action by Sailors, mostly Navy SEALS, seeking a religious exemption and issued a preliminary injunction March 30, halting separation for members of the class. A similar injunction was issued against the Marine Corps on August 18 by a federal judge in Florida.
Meanwhile, seven cadets at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy who refused to comply with the military’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate were dis-enrolled and ordered off the school’s New London, Connecticut campus in late August, SEAPOWER reported. Although a part of the Department of Homeland Security, the Coast Guard announced a vaccination mandate for service members on August 26th, 2021. By law, the Coast Guard operates under the Defense Department as part of the Department of the Navy when war is declared and Congress directs the shift, or when the President directs the Coast Guard to switch from Homeland Security to Defense.
Fifteen cadets filed medical exemption or religious accommodation requests in September 2021. They were evaluated on a case-by-case basis by the Coast Guard’s Office of Military Personnel Policy and denied. After a series of appeals and further denials, four cadets chose vaccination. Four others resigned from the Academy and the remaining seven were removed from the school for “violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice” for not obeying orders. For more details click here to see the SEAPOWER report by your 4GWAR editor, who is also a correspondent for the magazine and its website.
On a final note, the Defense Department announced Aug. 29 a new COVID-19 vaccine, Novavax, will be available as an option at military clinics. Officials hope Novavax, which is approved by the Food and Drug Administration under an emergency use authorization (EUA) for individuals 12 years of age and older, may be more acceptable to the thousands of troops who have refused the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines for religious or moral reasons.
Novavax uses technology that has been used in other vaccines required by the military, like hepatitis B vaccine. Novavax is not made with, or tested on, cells from fetal tissue. It does not use mRNA or DNA technology and does not enter the nucleus of cells, Pentagon officials said.
FRIDAY FOTO (October 3, 2021)
Son of a Sailor.
(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Spencer Fling)
Seaman Dominick Mazuera, with his father at his side, lifts his son Mateo in the air after seeing him for the first time since joining the Navy and graduating from Recruit Training Command.
More than 40,000 recruits train annually at the Navy’s only boot camp based at Great Lakes, Illinois.
In addition to the technical difficulties that delayed this week’s FRIFO, your 4GWAR Editor was faced with some tough choices for this week’s subject matter. We try to give each of the services their fair share of attention, we also try for a really beautiful photo, or else one that may not be great art but has an important story behind it. Nothing like that leaped out at us until we saw this sweet little image. The caption provided by the Navy gives the basic information, the imagery itself does the rest.
Your 4GWAR editor has been on the road a lot over the past two months from Pittsburgh, PA to the rocky coast of Maine and most of the mid-Atlantic states in between. In every city and town we visited there were vacant, boarded up businesses, big hotels empty as ghost towns and local restaurants and night spots struggling to survive with a skeleton staff. And yet everywhere — literally everywhere — we saw help wanted signs.
During this time we visited with old classmates, family and friends, all of whom have been through a rugged year and a half, battered by fire and flood — literally — long hours with little respite as nurses, teachers and other critical workers, all manner of physical and mental health challenges from depression and stress to COVID and cancer. (If you click on the second highlighted item above you’ll see the pains the Navy has taken to protect its recruits and other personnel from the pandemic) To paraphrase Thomas Paine, These are the times that try people’s souls.
So this little happy moment in time made the final FRIDAY FOTO cut. We hope you experience some of the joy, optimism — and a bit of pride — it gave us.
On that note, we leave you with the Jimmy Buffett song that inspired the headline for this week’s posting.
FRIDAY FOTO (July 3, 2020)
Solemn Masked Men.
(U.S. Army Photo by Elizabeth Fraser)
The U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) Caisson Platoon conducts military funeral honors with a modified escort for Navy Commander Jesse W. Lewis Junior at Arlington National Cemetery on June 29, 2020.
It was the first funeral service since March 26 to include a caisson, the next step in Arlington National Cemetery’s phased plan to resume greater support to military funeral honors as COVID-19 cases within the national capital region trend downward.
According to the Arlington website:
Military funeral honors with modified escort consists of individual service branch body bearers, a firing party, an escort commander with guidon, escort, bugler, drummer, national colors and chaplain. The 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment’s caisson platoon may also be requested. Additionally, U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps service members with ranks O-6 [colonel] and above may receive a caparisoned horse and flag officers [generals and admirals] from all services may receive the appropriate presidential salute battery (PSB) gun salute.
The U.S. Navy Ceremonial Guard also participated in the ceremony for the Navy veteran.
(U.S. Army photo by Elizabeth Fraser)
FRIDAY FOTO (June 12, 2020)
Back at Work Again.
F/A-18 Super Hornets fly in formation over the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt during operations in the Philippine Sea on June 9, 2020.
The TR, as the Nimitz-class, nuclear powered carrier is known, was the first U.S. Navy warship to endure an outbreak of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 while at sea.
After several Sailors tested positive for the virus, the ship pulled into Guam on March 27 and was sidelined there for more than two months. Most of the nearly 5,000 crew members were transferred off the ship — either to hospitals for treatment, or isolation in barracks and hotels on the island.
Before the ordeal was over, more than 1,100 Sailors were sickened and one died. A political firestorm sprang up when the skipper’s letter to Navy leaders seeking a quicker response to the crisis was leaked to the press. That led to the captain being relieved of command and the resignation of the acting Navy Secretary who fired him.
The TR returned to sea May 21 with a partial crew for a shakedown cruise to re-certify the carrier’s air wing and flight deck operations. After returning to pick up the rest of the crew, who now tested negative for COVID-19, the TR departed Guam on June 4 to resume its mission in the Asia-Pacific region.
FRIDAY FOTO (May 15, 2020)
Things Are Different Today.
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Corporal Shane T. Beaubien)
Marines with the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division prepare a M252 81mm Medium Weight Mortar at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, California on April 17.
The Marines and everybody else in the services is under orders now, if you can’t maintain a social distance of six feet in the Era of COVID-19 — wear proper face protection.
(Marine Corps photo by Corporal Kameron Herndon
Different everywhere.
Marine Corps Lance Corporal Faith Rose sights in on a target during training at Camp Hansen, Okinawa, Japan on May 6, 2020 — with face mask.
So those of you out there who think it’s inconvenient, stupid or not cool to wear a protective mask: Tell it to the Marines.
FRIDAY FOTO (May 1, 2020)
On a Clear Day …
(U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Cory W. Bush)
The U.S. Air Force and Navy flight demonstration squadrons, the Thunderbirds and the Blue Angels, fly over New York City as part of “America Strong,” a joint effort from the Navy and the Air Force to salute health care workers, first responders, service members and other essential personnel on the front-line in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
The contrails of the Thunderbirds‘ F-16 Fighting Falcon jets are on the lower right side of the photo as the Air Force team heads up the East River toward the iconic Brooklyn Bridge.
The Blue Angels and their F-18 Hornet aircraft are visible on the upper left side of the photo, heading up the Hudson River above the west side of Manhattan Island. Off to the left, lies New Jersey, which has also been hit very hard by the coronavirus.
Some critics have said the money it costs to fly these very expensive aircraft could be better spent ON those front-line health warriors — paying for more masks, gloves and other personal protection equipment. But apparently, at least some were thrilled at the sight (see photo below).
Your 4GWAR editor sees merit in both sides of the issue, but we also like seeing a bird’s eye view of our hometown on an incredibly clear day, April 28.
(U.S. Army National Guard photo by Specialist Michael Schwenk)
New Jersey National Guardsmen and medical personnel wave and snap photos as the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds fly over University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey on April 28, 2020.
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