Originally Posted by
Beech Dude
Back pay? Wouldn't count on it. I also wouldnt count on too many going back in.
IIRC LESS THAN 50 applied for reinstatement once the COVID immunization requirement was terminated so yeah, anyone with less than 17-18 years of creditable service is likely to tell the military to get bent. I fault the senior leadership that went along with this farce. I know they had better advice - I saw the position papers from some of their own preventive medicine specialists.
https://academic.oup.com/milmed/arti...-2/311/6387156
By the time the deadline for getting C0VID immunizations was up, especially for the Reserve and Guard troops, pretty much everybody who hadn't already been immunized had already had COVID and were pretty much now immune to severe disease while everybody who did get the shots promptly were already seeing their immunity fade and becoming susceptible to infection and spreading -19, just like with the other four human c0ronavirus species everyone is getting every day in the military and civilian world.
The only reason at that point to do it was, "Because we said so, that's why," and failing to kick these people out would now "undermine the authority of the chain of command." Well guess what? Having the next President order the people reinstated at rank and with back pay is going to undermine the chain of command a lot more than just not giving that first stupid order to begin with.
Leadership 101:
Don't give an order that you know the troops will not obey.
Leadership 102:
Don't give an order that you can't back up.
Order, counter order, disorder, is bad enough. But now we are left with the worst of both worlds. What do you do when someone decides that they don't want to get immunizations that really are of military significance? Like yellow fever that has a 30% mortality? There are actually vaccine preventable diseases out there that warrant mandatory immunization. You now have two competing bad precedents in a row.
There was NEVER a legitimate military case for mandatory COVID immunizations in the military age group notwithstanding a panicky CVN skipper. And now even the single military rationale - "because we say so, dammit",is being undermined.