This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
In this century, the U.S. military has fought a seemingly endless series of disastrous wars in distant lands, so endless that they've commonly come to be known as "forever wars." Given our all-volunteer armed forces, the only military responsibility of so many American civilians in these last two decades of conflict has been to endlessly thank and celebrate the troops (all too vaguely) for "their service" (all too vaguely put).
While those failed conflicts slowly crept home in any number of guises from the militarization of the police to Donald Trump's presidency to the January 6th attack on the Capitol, that eternal (if always passing) appreciation of "the troops" has never ended. It hardly matters that so many of the actual troops returned to their bases and communities here with endless war-induced problems of their own. Given all this, military spouse and TomDispatch regular Andrea Mazzarino, co-founder of the invaluable Costs of War Project and co-author of War and Health: The Medical Consequences of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, describes a strangely fitting development. The military that's spread such havoc globally in these years is evidently beginning to do so in a pandemic fashion as well, since a striking number of its troops, especially its younger ones, are simply refusing to be vaccinated for Covid-19.
Wouldn't it be close to the ultimate irony if, in the pandemic moment, Americans found themselves thanking an infectious military for passing on that virus? Think about that as you read Mazzarino's thoughts on the subject from a position all too up close and personal. Tom
Making Sense of a Viral Military
A Military Spouse's Perspective on the Pentagon's Flawed Response to the Pandemic
Herd immunity? Don't count on it. Not if that "herd" is the U.S. military.
According to news reports, at least a third of active-duty military personnel or those in the National Guard have opted out of getting the coronavirus vaccine. That figure, by the way, doesn't even include American troops stationed around the world, many of whom have yet to be offered the chance to be vaccinated. As a Navy spouse whose husband has moved to five separate U.S. duty stations in the decade we've been together, one thing is hard for me to imagine: an administration pledging to do everything it can to beat this pandemic has stopped short of using its executive powers to ensure that our 2.3 million armed forces members are all vaccinated.
From the point of view of those in the military refusing the vaccine, there's a simple reality (or perhaps I mean surreality) to this situation. There's so much disinformation about Covid-19 and the vaccination programs meant to deal with it floating around, particularly in the world of social media, that no one should be surprised that a third of the military here has flatly refused the shots. Even public efforts of the armed forces to dispel myths about the vaccine have not made a dent in these figures. For example, the decision of Army commanders at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to develop a local podcast on the subject and create what they call "vaccine ambassadors" in their own ranks have still left them facing an uphill battle. (Vaccine acceptance at that base was, as of February, below 50%.)
And note as well that vaccination rates are lowest among young soldiers. Sadly enough, in the midst of this country's incipient fourth wave of the disease, it's younger people who are increasingly catching it. Keep in mind that the military is disproportionately made up of evangelical Christians, a population among whom vaccine skepticism and resistance are already rampant. And take my word for it, much of the toxic rhetoric floating around American social media on such subjects is already seeping into the military's command culture as well.
In the communities where my husband and I have worked since the pandemic hit these shores, for example, I've met one commander who believes that God, not a vaccine, will decide whether he lives or dies. Another young officer I ran into believes that the risk of side effects from such vaccines outweighs any risk from the virus itself. Such attitudes are also sweeping into the larger military community, which is why a military spouse and mother assured me that our immune system is capable of beating the virus, no vaccine needed.
Reactions like theirs suggest how hard it will be, not just in the military, but in the country at large, to achieve "herd immunity." Sadly, despite the quarantining of those who test positive for the coronavirus, there has been far less action within the military (as in American society at large) to contain those who could become vectors for the disease than would be desirable, though it's long been known that asymptomatic spread is a significant contributor to the pandemic.
What stuns me as a military spouse is how little the Pentagon a distinctly top-down organization that operates by command, not wish is doing about the problem of troops opting out of being vaccinated. Why isn't Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin more forcefully denouncing those within the military community who discourage vaccination and don't get vaccinated themselves? What better use of his public position than to protect the lives of those troops being offered the vaccine, as well as those military personnel and their families who, as yet, have no access to such shots, and civilians still vulnerable to the virus in military communities around the world? Why isn't every commander photographing himself or herself getting a needle in the arm?
It's true that the military can't order troops to be vaccinated (as with many other vaccines) because the Federal Drug Administration has not yet officially "approved" any of the Covid-19 vaccines except under an "emergency-use authorization." And despite calls to do so by some Democratic lawmakers, President Biden has not made such shots mandatory for all military members and seems reluctant to do so in the future.
However, as Nation journalist Andrew McCormick has explained, there are many things the military could still do (but isn't doing) until such a moment arrives. These include offering paid time off, financial bonuses, and upgrades in military healthcare plans as incentives to those willing to get vaccinated. So far, there's no evidence that the Pentagon (which I reached out to on the subject without response) is willing to move in such a direction. Sadly, it seems that the health of our military, their families, and the communities they live and serve in just isn't the foremost concern of either the high command or an administration that in other areas has been impressive in its response to the pandemic.
Vaccine Passports? Not in This Military
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