The Ending Of The Vaccine Mandate That Didn’t End The Vaccine Mandate

On Monday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the ending of the vaccine mandate for American’s military forces.

The article reports:

  • The Biden administration has officially rescinded the military COVID-19 vaccination mandate, but ongoing litigation will continue and unvaccinated servicemembers may still be subject to discipline and discharge, experts explained to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
  • The Pentagon has 30 days to determine how to implement the mandate repeal.
  • “There’s nothing to repair what’s already happened. There’s nothing to address the improper handling of medical exemptions, the violations for Religious Freedom Restoration Act and what the future looks like,” R. Davis Younts, a military defense attorney, told the DCNF.

The article continues:

While the Biden administration has officially reversed the military COVID-19 vaccination mandate, servicemembers who escaped discharge for refusing the vaccine still risk retaliation and could be booted anyway, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Ongoing class action lawsuits thwarted the military’s efforts to discharge thousands of troops who objected to the mandate before the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law Friday, overturned it. However, servicemembers may risk reprisal even after the deadline passes for the Department of Defense (DOD) to implement the repeal, staining the records of thousands of servicemembers for the remainder of their careers, experts explained to the DCNF.

“There’s nothing to repair what’s already happened. There’s nothing to address the improper handling of medical exemptions, the violations for Religious Freedom Restoration Act and what the future looks like, whether it’s for religious reasons or other reasons,” R. Davis Younts, a military defense attorney, told the DCNF.

It doesn’t sound as if anyone is paying attention to the law.

The article concludes:

The military vaccine mandate has been the subject of strong debate between the DOD, which asserts that full vaccination status is critical to ensuring the readiness of the force, and Republican lawmakers, many of whom argue that the mandate has exacerbated an ongoing recruiting crisis.

“Secretary Austin supports maintaining the vaccine mandate. The health and readiness of our forces is critical to our warfighting capability and a top priority,” Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told the DCNF in a statement earlier in December.

The NDAA allows the DOD 30 days to work out how to roll back the mandate. The department is “currently in the process of developing further guidance,” DOD spokesperson Lt. Col. Garron Garn told the DCNF.

“We have no idea” what the DOD’s policy will be moving forward, Younts told the DCNF.

It doesn’t sound as if the DOD is willing to follow the law passed by elected officials. In that case, some DOD officials need to be removed.

It’s important to remember that many of the heart problems associated with the Covid vaccine have occurred in men between the ages of 18 and 28. That is the age of a large percentage of our military. Why are our leaders putting our military at risk?