FLASHBACK: Mike Johnson warned vaccine mandate will hurt US military
In June 2022, now-House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) raised the alarm about the detrimental effect the vaccine mandate would have on the US military.
“The Biden Administration is destroying the readiness of our Armed Forces by creating an unnecessary recruiting and retention shortfall, and trying to make up the difference by lowering other crucial education and fitness standards,” tweeted Rep. Johnson.
“All of this over an illness that is very, very, very, unlikely to have any significant effect on the young men and women of our military, and a vaccine that lacks long-term data on safety and efficacy for this cohort.”
“There is simply no other way around it: Until [the Secretary of Defense] withdraws, delays, or modifies the vax mandate, or begins rapidly granting more exemptions, our military will have to continue lowering recruitment standards—degrading the readiness and professionalism of our Armed Forces,” he concluded.
Johnson’s warning was prescient. Frontline News reported this month that over 7,950 US military personnel who were discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine have still not rejoined as the US military grapples with a severe recruiting crisis.
In 2021 all US service members were ordered to take the experimental mRNA injections, which resulted in over 8,000 personnel being discharged for their refusal. Although the mandate was rescinded in January this year, CNN reports that only 43 service members have rejoined the military. These include 19 Army members, 12 Marines, one Air Force member and two Navy personnel.
Many soldiers were forced to repay their signing bonuses after they were fired for being unvaccinated. One Army soldier who received a $7,000 signing bonus and was fired for refusing the shots in May must now pay back a pro-rated $4,000 to the Biden administration for failing to complete his six-year commitment. The soldier was forced to sell 60 of his vacation days to come up with the money.
"I've deployed multiple times, and I feel like the last thing I had was selling leave days that I earned and was never able to take due to me being deployed or needing that time to prepare for the training cycle,” the serviceman told Fox News Digital. “I was about to enter a new world with no income, and that extra bit would have been a nice buffer in my rainy day fund to keep me afloat until I was able to find new employment.”
While the Defense Department claims it has exceeded its retention numbers for the 2023 fiscal year, it is facing a worrying recruiting crisis. For 2023 the US Army fell 10,000 short of its recruiting goal, a mere improvement from 2022 when it fell short by 15,000 recruits — its worst performance in 50 years.
The crisis — blamed partly on the vaccine mandate and partly on the military’s infiltration by gender totalitarians — prompted an Army decision last week to create a new career field dedicated solely to recruitment. Currently, noncommissioned officers are tapped to temporarily serve as recruiters in addition to their military occupational specialty (MOS). Now the Army will hire personnel whose permanent MOS is to recruit new members.
Other strategies to boost recruitment involve financial incentives. In January the Army announced it will begin offering a $1,500 sign-on bonus to Army recruiters who exceed their quarterly quota. According to Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Grinston, the Army “cannot afford another slow year in recruiting.” The Army is also offering several enlistment bonuses to new recruits.
It is unclear if these strategies will be effective, however. The number of service members and veterans who would recommend joining the military has dropped significantly, according to the Military Family Advisory Network (MFAN), from 74.5% to 62.9% in 2021.
