Soldiers who still refuse to comply with mandatory vaccination against COVID-19 will be forced out of the Army, the service announced Wednesday.
As of last week, 96% of the active-duty Army was fully vaccinated -- far outpacing the general civilian population, in which 74% of adults are inoculated against the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Army Reserve reports that 75% of its members are fully vaccinated, but units have had a difficult time tracking the vaccination status of part-time troops.
Any soldier with an outstanding exemption request will be shielded from discharge until a decision is made, the service said. The only broad exception the Army is making is if soldiers are set to complete their current contract before July 2. Those troops will be allowed to fulfill their obligations to the force while unvaccinated, according to the announcement.
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Troops refusing the vaccine have been relatively rare across all the services, but exemptions have been even rarer. Of the 709 soldiers who requested medical exemptions, only six have been granted.
Some service members have sought medical exemptions based on conspiracy theories or misinformation about the vaccines, a likely reason the bulk of requests have been denied. However, a small minority of soldiers have medical conditions that preclude them from receiving the vaccine or have suffered through rare vaccination side effects, such as myocarditis.
The Army has granted none of the 2,910 requests for religious exemptions from the COVID-19 vaccine it has received. Soldiers are also mandated to receive at least a dozen other vaccines against ailments including the flu, hepatitis and smallpox. Troops who did not object to those vaccines on religious grounds likely face an uphill battle making their case against the COVID-19 vaccines.
"Army readiness depends on soldiers who are prepared to train, deploy, fight and win our nation's wars," Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said in a statement. "Unvaccinated Soldiers present risk to the force and jeopardize readiness. We will begin involuntary separation proceedings for soldiers who refuse the vaccine order and are not pending a final decision on an exemption."
The Army's new policy follows a recent law passed by Congress that directed the Defense Department to allow any service member who is discharged for refusing a vaccine to receive either an honorable or general discharge under honorable conditions.
That means troops who are booted will retain their benefits, for the most part. However, being removed with a general discharge terminates eligibility for GI Bill benefits -- largely seen as veterans' most powerful benefit.
The new policy also directs that soldiers who receive the boot will lose out on any involuntary separation pay, and they are potentially subject to having their bonuses recouped -- meaning they could be on the hook to pay the Army back what can sometimes be healthy enlistment bonuses. The force recently announced that recruits going into high-demand jobs can
earn as much as $50,000 for joining.
Meanwhile, the Army National Guard still has a June 30 deadline for its members to be fully vaccinated. That has set up a skirmish with Republicans fighting COVID-19 related rules, with governors from several states suing or dismissing the Biden administration's mandate.
Governors of Oklahoma, Texas, Alaska, Idaho, Nebraska, Mississippi and Wyoming have all said that they will not discharge their troops if they refuse the vaccine while they are on state orders. Guardsmen have dueling obligations to the federal government and the governor of the state they serve, making the conflicting guidelines confusing as rules over who has ultimate control of the Guard have never been fully articulated.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration over the mandate. However, senior leaders in the Texas National Guard have no confidence the governor's suit will work, according to recorded phone calls obtained by Military.com. Roughly half of the Texas Guard isn't vaccinated, prompting concern from leaders over how they're going to reach compliance by this summer. Texas has one of the largest National Guard forces and is the only state with conventional airborne capabilities.
At a town hall event in October, Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston, the force's top enlisted leader, compared the vaccine to body armor.
"Imagine… all of a sudden I got this new body armor and said, 'Well, I’m not going to give it to you, but you’re still going to deploy,'" Grinston said. "You would never question the secretary or the chief [of staff] to tell you that you've got to wear that body armor."
-- Steve Beynon can be reached at Steve.Beynon@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenBeynon.
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