More and more Army soldiers are reenlisting after being discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine, according to information shared exclusively with The Daily Signal.
The increase comes after Congress repealed the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate and conservative lawmakers applied pressure to Defense Department leaders to be more welcoming of 8,400 service members who were “fired” for their refusal to get the COVID-19 shot.
As of October, only 19 soldiers had returned to the Army. That number grew to 57 this month.
Even though the number tripled over the past two months, it represents just 3% of the 1,903 soldiers who were kicked out of the Army under its vaccine mandate.
“I’m glad that we were able to remove the COVID-19 vaccine mandate last Congress, but there is more work to do,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who in January introduced what he calls the AMERICANS Act to ensure service members would be welcomed back if they chose to reenlist. . . .
. . . . The Heritage Foundation’s National Independent Panel on Military Service and Readiness, chaired by Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., issued a report in March citing the COVID-19 vaccine mandate as an impediment to recruitment and retention. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news outlet.)
“As a result of changing conditions on the ground, the COVID-19 vaccine mandate became more detrimental than beneficial to military readiness. Every servicemember separated from service or formally restricted from operations is also not deployable, which reduces overall readiness. The cumulative effect of the vaccine mandate has equated to entire divisions no longer available for deployment.”
The panel faulted military leaders for not reconsidering the vaccine mandate as conditions changed and for letting politics contribute to their decisions. This led to “a diminished amount of trust between leaders and subordinates.”
That’s one of the reasons Cruz introduced the AMERICANS Act—to ensure service members would be welcomed back if they chose to reenlist. Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., introduced a companion bill in the House.
“The COVID vaccine mandate is gone, and our military is undermanned at a critical time,” Cruz said in a written statement to The Daily Signal. “We should be welcoming unvaccinated servicemen and women who want to come back into our armed forces with open arms.” . . . . (read more on Daily Signal)
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s husband quit the U.S. military over its COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Now the couple are suing the government for lost salary and out-of-pocket medical costs (MuckRock, 21 DEC 23)
In September 2021, an Air Force technical sergeant named Andrew Gamberzky requested a religious exemption, due to his Christian beliefs, from the military’s then-mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy.
In his written request to the Oregon Air Force National Guard, Gamberzky decried the lack of “long-term research on the impacts and effects to human health and behavior” of the COVID-19 vaccine.
He objected to the use of any “fetal material” in its research, development and the vaccines themselves.
He also noted that, having been injured while on duty in Afghanistan and having been previously infected with the virus, he had antibodies to the virus and would be able to “continue to serve my country well.”
Gamberzky — who, at the time, was married to Anna Paulina Luna, a self-described Republican media personality who would go on to win a congressional race in 2022 to represent Florida’s 13th district, outside Tampa — quoted three verses of Scripture and ended the letter with the name and phone number of his pastor at his family’s church in Largo, Florida.
Gamberzky ultimately resigned although it is unclear if the military formally ruled on his request.
In his complaint, Gamberzky was told “by members of his squadron not to bother” pursuing the request “as they were all getting denied.”
He was one of roughly 17,000 service members who refused the vaccine. More than 2 million other service members, and nearly 350,000 Defense Department civilian employees, were vaccinated.
Now, Gamberzky and Luna, a member of the House Freedom Caucus and an ardent Trump supporter, are suing the Department of Defense, the Air Force, the National Guard and the Oregon Military Department in federal court, claiming the vaccine mandate violated both their constitutional First Amendment rights and religious freedoms.
They are seeking damages for Gamberzky’s lost salary, medical expenses, retirement benefits and bonus pay, along with attorneys’ fees. . . . (read more)
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