Spencer Finley

Staff Writer

sjf5814@psu.edu

On the 24th of August, following the announcement that Pfizer’s vaccination against COVID-19 received full approval from the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), the Department of Defense released new guidance requiring that all members of the armed forces receive vaccination against COVID-19 or risk suffering consequences. 

“Mandatory vaccinations are familiar to all of our service members, and mission-critical inoculation is almost as old as the U.S Military itself.” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a memorandum sent to U.S troops on Tuesday.

Austin was referring to a historic campaign to keep U.S troops safe from diseases like smallpox. According to the Library of Congress, George Washington mandated that all soldiers in the Continental Army receive an inoculation against smallpox in February of 1777,  despite fears that his army would be incapacitated and unable to do battle with the British army when it was required. More recently, the military has required service members to receive vaccinations against diseases such as the flu, polio, and measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) in order to maintain the physical health and readiness of the various branches of the armed forces. He went on to say that “Our administration of safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines has produced admirable results to date,” and stated that, “I therefore direct the Secretaries of the Military Departments to immediately begin full vaccination of all members of the Armed Forces under DoD authority on active duty or in the Ready Reserve, including the National Guard, who are not fully vaccinated against COVID-19.”

A noncommissioned officer who works in human resources in the U.S Army, who asked to remain nameless, said that the likeliest course of action would be a “[Uniform Code of Military Justice charge] for failing to obey a lawful order” for soldiers on active duty and that reservists would be “considered medically unready” and “sent home as being an unsatisfactory participant. ”Both courses of action could lead to the service member’s removal from the military with an other than honorable discharge. 

Per a Department of Defense directive, service members who have previously received a medical exemption from receiving a COVID-19 vaccination will not be required to acquire a vaccination; however, members of the armed forces who have previously been infected with COVID-19 are not to be exempted from the vaccine mandate. Additionally, the Department of Defense stated in a directive from the 24th of August that service members would only be required to receive the Pfizer vaccine, as it is the only vaccine to date that has been fully approved by the FDA; however, according to a Medical Material Quality Control Message sent to soldiers on the following day, vaccines from other manufacturers which are not fully approved by the FDA, including Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, will still count towards fulfilling the requirements set forth by the vaccine mandate, regardless of when they received the vaccine. 

At the time this article was written, there was no official Department of Defense guidance on how to punish troops who defy the vaccine mandate.