Originally Posted by
Lowslung
The risk was never that large numbers of service members were going to die. The risk was that large numbers of personnel would get sick at the same time, rendering combat units ineffective and overwhelming the capabilities of the military healthcare system. THAT constitutes an actual threat to national security. The military doesn't make members get vaccines, go through physicals, get ailments treated, PT test, etc. because they're concerned about your personal health. They do those things because, at the end of the day, they need people to be combat effective. Doesn't take a whole lot of mental gymnastics to understand the military response to COVID.
Au contraire. If they had said everybody must be vaccinated within 60 days, your assertion may indeed have been credible. But they gave service members up to a year and a half, by which time most of those who had not yet been vaccinated had already had it and recovered from it.
In fact for the entire age group of military members COVID was - as the article mentions - a trivial risk. Even when infected for the vast majority the illness was no more severe than a cold in that age group and not a threat to mission effectiveness - barring some aircraft carrier skipper panicking.
And this age related severity was well known early on in the pandemic. When Italy and Spain were hit early on, over 50% of the mortality was in the age group 85 years and above.