Only 43 military personal kicked out of the military for vaccine refusal have come back!

[planosteve]

The new year brought a major victory for thousands of service members who refused the COVID-19 vaccines – and the conservative lawmakers and pundits who backed them. The Pentagon was forced to repeal its coronavirus mandate by a largely-GOP-backed requirement added to the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden in December. But many troops who balked at taking the shots still face uncertain futures.

The new year brought a major victory for thousands of service members who refused the COVID-19 vaccines – and the conservative lawmakers and pundits who backed them. The Pentagon was forced to repeal its coronavirus mandate by a largely-GOP-backed requirement added to the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden in December. But many troops who balked at taking the shots still face uncertain futures.

The controversy shows how healthcare became a political football, with both the far right and some on the left objecting to mandated COVID vaccinations, mask-wearing, and other government public health responses. It also revealed how COVID disinformation spread and caught fire, stoking deepening mistrust of government among wide segments of American society.

More than 17,000 service members balked at taking the shots, citing safety fears linked to the vaccine’s speedy development and spurred by misinformation about messenger ribonucleic acid technology, as well as concern over fetal cell lines used in formulation and testing. The more the controversy raged in the news, the more troops asked to skip the shots, Military Times reporting found.

While the Pentagon lifted the vaccine mandate as ordered, officials warned that repealing it would affect military readiness, potentially putting service members at risk of serious illness. DoD officials believe the shots worked: Not a single service member has died of COVID-19 since early 2022, when more than 98% of the active duty force had been at least partially vaccinated.

“The Department will continue to promote and encourage COVID-19 vaccination for all Service members,” Austin wrote in the Jan. 10 memo repealing the mandate. “The Department has made COVID-19 vaccination as easy and convenient as possible, resulting in vaccines administered to over two million Service members and 96 percent of the force ― Active and Reserve ― being fully vaccinated.”

The now-lifted mandate’s aftermath is still playing out. Of the 17,000 service members who refused to take the vaccine, roughly half have been discharged and another thousand or so secured exemptions.

Separated troops are eligible to upgrade their discharges, or even come back into service if they want to. At the same time, Pentagon officials are still determining how to treat ― and possibly reprimand ― the remaining 7,000 troops who leaders say did not follow a lawful order.

The mandate’s end put a halt to any adverse actions against currently serving troops who had applied for exemptions, while opening the door for those involuntarily separated to apply to have their characterizations of service changed on their discharge paperwork. What it didn’t do was authorize them to automatically get their jobs back, or furnish any back pay for the time between their discharges and the mandate repeal, though some Republican lawmakers are still pushing for that legislation.

[Troops who refused COVID vaccines still could face punishment]

The Pentagon is also exploring how to handle a small number of still-serving troops who didn’t apply for waivers, but avoided dismissal during the vaccine mandate, meaning they refused a lawful order to get vaccinated.

“It’s very important that our service members follow orders when they are lawful, and there are thousands that did not,” Gil Cisneros, the Pentagon’s personnel boss, told members of the House Armed Services Committee in February. “The services are going through a process to review those cases to make a determination what needs to be done.”

In addition to separating more than 8,000 troops, the services granted roughly 1,200 permanent and temporary exemptions for the vaccine, whether for administrative reasons, including religious objection, or medical concerns.

The number of waivers was unprecedented. In August 2021, before the Pentagon first announced its forthcoming mandate, vaccine exemptions were relatively rare, and mostly given for past allergic reactions or for temporary situations, like pregnancy or an impending separation from service.

Involuntary discharges for separation were even more rare, and hadn’t happened in any significant way since the early 2000s, when the widespread side effects of the anthrax vaccine prompted a groundswell of troops to refuse it.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your ... e-mandate/

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/02/politics ... index.html

[BigTex]

A lot of people got what amounts to an early out. They got a chance to sample military service and feel no need to return to it. They just have to be aware that if they got an involuntary or less than honorable discharge that could have some effect on getting a civilian job or qualifying for veterans benefits.

[planosteve]

A lot of people got what amounts to an early out. They got a chance to sample military service and feel no need to return to it. They just have to be aware that if they got an involuntary or less than honorable discharge that could have some effect on getting a civilian job or qualifying for veterans benefits.

I think the people that left were probably higher quality than the ones that will be replacing them. That won't show up in the figures. And the fact that they would use career ending threats to jab them is going to keep a lot of higher quality people from joining in the future. Body autonomy is very important to most folks.