President Joe Biden signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law Friday, ending the Department of Defense’s COVID-19 mandate for troops.
A Pentagon news release states that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered the mandate Aug. 24, 2021, and that since the mandate was in place, only two service members died from COVID-19, while 96% of the total force is now vaccinated.
Although Austin has “argued that the mandate is necessary to protect military readiness, and he has been clear in his support for maintaining it,” officials said the department will “fully comply,” with the latest law.
The department has 30 days to work out the details for rescinding the mandate. The Pentagon said Friday that in the meantime the military services would pause any personnel actions, such as discharging troops who refused the shot, and all troops would still be encouraged to get vaccinated and boosted, according to the Associated Press.
During a Dec. 7 press briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said repealing the vaccine mandate would be a mistake. She said that before the COVID-19 vaccine, 100 active-duty service members died from the virus.
“Vaccinations work and save the lives of our service members,” she said.
The House voted 350-80 on Dec. 8 to approve the military budget, which removes the mandate, while the Senate voted 83-11 on Dec. 15 to approve it.
More:House passes defense bill scrapping COVID vaccine mandate
What N.C. members of U.S. Congress have said about the mandate
Republican U.S. Rep. Richard, Hudson whose district includes Fort Bragg, cosponsored a house resolution with Republican Rep. Greg Murphy in July that sought to repeal the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for service members.
In a letter to Biden, Hudson said that the public-private partnership known as Operation Warp Speed to accelerate the development of COVID-19 cures and therapies has caused COVID-19 to pose “little risk to life,” while therapeutics “exist to ensure the readiness of our military,”
“More than two years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, it is past time for the Biden administration to respect the rights of our service members at Fort Bragg and around the world,” Hudson has said.
Hudson also joined 46 other Republicans in September in sending a letter to Austin questioning how the vaccine mandate impacted military readiness and recruiting.
“The vaccine provides negligible benefit to the young, fit members of our Armed Forces, and the mandate’s imposition is clearly affecting the Department’s ability to sustain combat formations and recruit future talent,” the letter states.
According to a news release from Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, the military budget for the fiscal year 2023 rescinds the COVID-19 vaccine “amid the nation’s massive recruiting crisis.”
How many soldiers have been vaccinated
Of the more than 1,800 regular Army soldiers who have been separated from the military for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine, it is unknown how many of those are Fort Bragg soldiers.
Officials with Fort Bragg’s 18th Airborne Corps said the Army is not releasing data from individual installations.
According to Army-wide counts as of Dec. 1, 97% of soldiers have been vaccinated for COVID-19, while 1,328 soldiers have refused the vaccine, and 1,841 soldiers have separated from the Army following the Department of Defense’s mandate that all service members receive the vaccine.
Army budget documents show there are about 473,000 soldiers in the regular Army.
Fort Bragg is the largest military installation by population in the world and is the home of the airborne and special operations forces, with about 49,000 military personnel.
Another 5,643 soldiers in the Army National Guard and 4,558 Reserve soldiers have refused the vaccine, while 91% in the Guard and 92% in the Reserve have been vaccinated, according to Army data.
As of Dec. 1, there were 2,363 approved exemptions in the regular Army, 6,950 in the Army Guard and 4,142 in the Army Reserve.
Out of 1,220 medical requests from all three Army branches, 65 were approved and 1,104 were denied while the others were being processed as of Dec. 1.
Of the 9,005 religious exemption requests, 123 were approved from all three branches, and 1,913 were denied as of Dec. 1.
Medical requests have been reviewed “primarily by healthcare providers, while religious accommodation requests include interviews with the soldier’s chaplain, recommendations from the chain of command, as well as a public health and a legal review,” according to the news release.
Guidance since July 1 had been that service members who refused the vaccine without a temporary or permanent exemption “ may not participate in federally funded drills, training and other duty nor receive payment or retirement credit, the release said.
Soldiers who refused the vaccine without an approved or pending exemption request have been “subject to certain adverse administrative actions, including flags, bars to continued service,” official reprimands and separation.
Fort Bragg separation and legal case
In a Sept. 9, 2021, Tweet, Katie Phipps Hague said her husband, Lt. Col. Paul Douglas Hague, resigned because of several concerns, including the vaccine mandate.
Hague was a signal officer at Fort Bragg assigned to the Army Reserve Command.
A record provided to The Fayetteville Observer states his last day of service with the Army was Feb. 3.
In his Aug. 23, 2021, resignation letter that his wife shared on Twitter, Hague said that he did not think the vaccine has been adequately studied to determine long-term effects.
“I am incapable of subjecting myself to the unlawful, unethical, immoral and tyrannical order to sit still and allow a serum to be injected into my flesh against my will and better judgment,” Hague wrote.
He told Fox News’ Sean Hannity last year that he’s served 18 years of active duty and has two years left until retirement, but he does not want the COVID-19 vaccine despite receiving other military vaccines.
“This is about the freedom of the American people — the right to choose your own medical procedures. The right to decide what’s going to be injected into your body and what’s not,” Hague said. “That’s a natural human right that we can’t take away from people. And I swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution which affords those rights to the Americans.”
Hague isn’t the only Fort Bragg soldier who’s refused the vaccine.
More:How many Army soldiers have been kicked out for not receiving the COVID-19 vaccine
After Secretary of Defense Austin announced the vaccine mandate in August, Staff Sgt. Daniel Robert, a Fort Bragg infantryman, joined Marine Staff Sgt. Hollie Mulvihill, an air traffic controller at Marine Corps New River Air Station in Jacksonville, in filing a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Colorado seeking to override the mandate.
Named as defendants were Austin and the U.S. Department of Defense, the Department of Health and Human Services and its secretary, Xavier Becerra, and the Food and Drug Administration and its acting secretary, Janet Woodcock.
Austin’s Aug. 24 order states that after consulting with medical experts and leaders, it was determined the vaccine was necessary to “protect the force and defend the American people.”
Robert’s and Mulvihill’s lawsuit states they both contracted COVID-19 and recovered, and that their natural immunity should suffice instead of the vaccine.
In their response to the lawsuit, the Army noted that the Department of Defense immunization program has been in place for decades and requires all service members to receive nine immunizations and a possible additional eight “depending on circumstances like deployment.”
The Army said that immunizations “are critical to reducing infectious disease morbidity and mortality in the armed forces where service members must routinely operate in close quarters.”
Colorado District Judge Raymond Moore ruled in favor of the Army on Jan. 11, but Robert and Mulvihill filed an appeal in February.
In a response filed in May, the Army argued that Mulvihill has a temporary medical exemption from the vaccination requirement, and Robert had a pending request for an administrative exemption from the requirement.
Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at rriley@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3528.
