Vaccine doubt in the military poses dilemma for Pentagon
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s effort to mandate coronavirus vaccination for all 1.3 million activeduty service members will continue to face resistance from a segment of the force, troops and observers say, until military leaders devise an effective strategy for countering pervasive doubt about the pandemic’s seriousness and widespread misinformation about the shots.
When Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced earlier this month that he would seek to require inoculation no later than midSeptember, Pentagon data showed that thousands of personnel — about onethird of the force — remained unvaccinated. President Joe Biden quickly endorsed the move.
The looming mandate comes as the virus’s highly transmissible delta variant fuels a new wave of infections globally, and after Biden directed agencies throughout the federal government to implement proof-of-vaccination requirements or impose restrictions on employees who refuse. For military personnel, administration officials have said, the need is urgent.
“Right now it’s being framed as a readiness issue,” said Katherine Kuzminski, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, pointing to the current security crisis in Afghanistan’s capital, where thousands of U.S. troops were sent with little notice to help evacuate American citizens and U.S. allies following the Taliban’s takeover of the country. “As we see in Afghanistan, there is certainly a need to rapidly deploy people, and they may or may not be going to places that have relatively high rates of vaccinations.”
The Defense Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Vaccine rates have varied widely between the service branches. In July, the Navy led with more than 70 percent of its personnel fully vaccinated. At the low end, fewer than 60 percent of Marines met that criteria.
Though Pentagon officials have made clear a mandate is imminent, and that those who refuse risk losing their jobs, inoculation has been voluntary. Anecdotally, it appears at least some have viewed the lack of a requirement as grounds to infer the shots might not be safe despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary.
“Just from talking to soldiers, picking their brains, some of the things I’ve heard have been ‘I don’t know the long term effects’ or ‘I just don’t know enough and it worries me,’ ” said Capt. Javon Starnes, a soldier at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Starnes detailed his own bout with the virus in an episode of “The 18th Airborne Corps Podcast.”
Further sowing doubt for some are the rampant disinformation and conspiracy theories spreading on social media.
When the coronavirus vaccine is made mandatory for military personnel, the only exemptions would be for religious or medical concerns. Yet last month on Gab, a social networking site popular among the farright, documents circulated claiming they would garner an “air tight religious exemption” request.
“You’ve got a social media site that already traffics in white nationalism that is specifically targeting the military to inject these ideas into the conversation,” said Kris Goldsmith, an Army veteran and CEO of Sparverius, a company that tracks online extremism. “There is also a lot less distance between your family and friends. Today you bring your TikTok and Twitter with you, so even if the military is a diverse place, you can constantly be exposed to misinformation.”
In announcing his intent Aug. 9, Austin stopped short of establishing a deadline by which all personnel must be vaccinated and said that the leaders of each branch of service would be responsible for establishing their own plans.