America's Talking - Despite Reversal, Discharged Military Members Still Feel Impact of COVID Vaccine Mandate

Episode Date: July 30, 2023

Federal COVID-era vaccine policies hurt U.S. service members, according to witnesses testifying at a House Oversight Hearing Thursday examining the mandates. The Pentagon announced in January of this year that it would lift its COVID vaccine mandate but not before the vast majority of U.S. service members already were forced into vaccination. Those who refused were usually denied their exemption request and often discharged. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulib, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me again today is the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Casey, Casey, we're three and a half years removed from COVID, about three years, a little less than three years removed from the COVID-19 vaccine and the vaccine mandates that the federal government put into place. But still, it's a topic of conversation. Congress this week held a hearing on the ramifference. of the COVID-19 vaccine mandates on members of the military. And even though the vaccine mandate has been rescinded, long since been rescinded,

those who were impacted, those who didn't, in the military who didn't want to take the vaccine for various reasons, whether it's religious exemptions, health exemptions, they faced ramifications when they refused to get the vaccine. And it hasn't been remedied, even though that vaccine mandate is no longer. Tell us what you heard at this hearing. What's going on? Yeah, that's right. So the House Oversight Committee held a hearing on this this week.

They dug into, you know, what is the impact on these soldiers? I mean, they looked at a lot of the impact of the vaccine mandates. But I thought this impact on U.S. service members has been really interesting because the military was very strict on vaccination from the beginning. And they were some of the last people to lift their mandates compared to other, you know, local governments and things. So the Pentagon only lifted their vaccine mandate in January of this year. So it's basically almost three years after the pandemic began. They lifted their vaccine mandate. And they only did that because Congress, if you remember Dan, in last December in the military funding bill,

the Republicans, you know, forced that in there and said that they had to lift the vaccine mandate. But even with that mandate lifted, you know, the vast majority of U.S. service members have already been vaccinated because it's been several years. And those who refuse to be vaccinated have faced the consequences. And many of them have been discharged. It's varied a little bit, you know, based on the different branches. I mean, there have been some people who weren't discharged, but many people were. And so, you know, we have, we've talked, I think on this podcast and the center square. com about the U.S. Navy SEALs, the group of Navy SEALs who were refusing to be vaccinated and had to, you know, basically sue and been in this long legal battle to contest the vaccine mandate.

There was also a group of members of the Air Force, right, who sued and said, hey, you can't make a take this. And what they found is that all these members were applying for a religious exemption. And the military and really any federal group is supposed to take and consider these religious exemptions one by one and either accept or deny them and give kind of the reason why they're denying them. But what they found is that, for example, in the case of the Navy SEALs, that the government was just like stamping, basically stamping no on all of them and not even really considering them. Almost no one was getting exemptions. The, you know, the Navy was just saying no, no, no, no, and not even considering them on an individual basis. And so that was really what hurt them in court. And the Navy

Seals were actually winning some court battles on this. But now with the mandate lifted, things are different. So the question is, Dan, you know, do these guys get reinstated? Can you even do that? And how do you even, you know, deal with all the people who are injured by the vaccine through, you know, myocarditis? And now even, you know, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is like not even like available anymore. So there's definitely been documented side effects. And then those who refused it felt the impact on their career, right? So, you know, I think, do you think most Americans want these guys to be reinstated? I mean, I don't even know how we would begin to do that, or how do you quantify the damage done? That's difficult, right? But in the time that these

military members were either discharged or demoted or not promoted because of what they did, there certainly was damage done there. But for those who weren't necessarily discharged, but they weren't promoted because of it, I don't know how you make that up. You lose pay increases, you lose military status, et cetera. So coming out of this congressional hearing, is there, is there next steps? Is Congress going to continue to push on this? What do you know? I think the best shot for it is this NDAA bill that they're discussing right now. It's the next military funding bill, right? Normally in the past, those have been passed, you know, more like something in the summer, but because of the dysfunction of Congress has been pushed later.

and later. And so the NDA is the, you know, the way that Congress funds the military. It's a very large bill. They set aside often line items for different things. They're in lengthy meetings with members of the military and what needs spending. What can we cut back on? They're talking about how many jets at which bases, how much ammunition at which spaces. So it's very thorough. It's very detailed. And it has to pass. I mean, you know, I guess if anything has to pass, the NDA has to pass. So this is not really an optional bill. It's a regularly pass spending bill. And so it's like, okay, that will probably be the battleground for this whole fight to come on. A lot of members don't like to put more political things in there or more controversial things,

but reinstating service members in this case is, you know, I don't know how political that is going to be in their minds. And it's also interesting because you can reinstate people on broad basis, but you got to wonder about things like, how is that going to affect morale, cohesion, people who did get the vaccine in complied. And maybe we're injured by it. now they're sitting next to someone who refused it vaccine and refused basically the orders they were given by the military and was eventually reinstated. So it's a complicated issue, but I think this next NDAA could be the vehicle for something to change, but not necessarily. Interesting, Casey. Thank you for your insight.

Listeners can keep up with this story and more at thecentersquare.com. We are out of time. For Casey Harper, I'm Dan McKeelib. Please subscribe. Thank you for listening.