House Republicans, angry that tens of thousands of National Guardsmen have reputedly been kept inactive because they have not complied with the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate, fired off a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin demanding he repeal the mandate.
Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL), the first Green Beret elected to Congress, wrote the letter, which was signed by 13 other Republican members of Congress. “National Guard troops who have not received two COVID-19 vaccine doses by June 30, 2022 are under threat of, or actively being barred from, federally-funded deployments and receiving pay, according to the Pentagon’s late 2021 vaccine order,” The Daily Mail pointed out.
Citing the updated guidance released by the CDC on August 11 which acknowledged greater immunity to COVID among the general public, Waltz wrote, “Why not also reduce the strain on our already faltering military recruitment and retention efforts by taking this new data into consideration, as the CDC has in their new guidance, and revise the Department of Defense’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate?”
“Approximately 45,000 National Guardsmen are unable to participate in crucial training in support of their federal missions due to a vaccine mandate that does not slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus,” Waltz charged, adding, “All of this is happening with the backdrop of a recruiting and retention crisis the military services have not seen in decades.”
“Our military has been crippled by the restrictive COVID-19 policies that the Department of Defense under the Biden administration have implemented,” Waltz told The Daily Mail. “At a time when our adversaries, including China, are rapidly expanding and modernizing their militaries, why would the Department of Defense continue to implement a policy that decreases military recruitment, retention, and readiness?”
In January, Austin sent a letter to the governors of Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, Nebraska, Texas and Wyoming. He wrote, “To ensure that we maintain a healthy and ready military force capable of accomplishing our mission to defend this nation and to protect the American people, vaccination against COVID-19 is an essential military readiness requirement.”
The governors of Texas and Alaska had filed suit challenging the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate for the National Guard, arguing that the federal government had no authority over them. “There has long been a clear and distinct line between when National Guardsmen are governed by state authority and when they are governed by federal authority. When National Guardsmen are serving the State, the federal government has no command authority,” the lawsuit stated.