So we listened to Riley's interview linked in another thread. Afterward, we went for a walk and the conversation naturally lent itself to what we had just heard. My husband is a God fearing patriot who served two tours in Iraq. He is military through and through.
My position: If the military didn't remove bodily autonomy by compelling members of the armed forces to put things into their bodies that they didn't want, people like Riley would still be in the military.
His position: Members of the armed services lose the right to bodily autonomy when they join. If one is ordered to take a given series of vaccines or meds, then one should have faith in the higher-ups who've deemed it necessary and follow those orders. If members of the military are allowed to pick and choose what they put in their bodies, then the chain of command breaks down and weakens the military as a whole. He went on to say that he was given all kinds of things when he served and he never questioned it. "It's the military way."
My counter position: But the c-19 vaccine was experimental and was only authorized for emergency use, which is why the FDA rushed the approval in order to give a legal leg to stand on with regard to the mandate. I contend that if members of the military have the right to refuse to put something in their bodies, then at least they are protected from anyone at the top who is involved in nefarious actions.
His contention: the military can't categorize orders (medical, combat etc) and function properly. An order is an order. Those who can't or won't follow them have the opportunity to leave the military.
We rarely talk about this kind of thing and today I was reminded of why...I can't help but wonder based on the Riley interview and papers if the CCP wasn't fully aware of this military mindset and this was part of their plan to weaken our military all along...with the help of JB of course...
Your husband’s opinion is wrong. Regardless of the legal justification of the Vax mandate, it was clearly an illegal order.
The military cannot mandate a medicine that is under an EUA order.
In order to get around that, the DoD issued a “legal opinion” that equated the Pfizer EUA “vaccine” as the same as the FDA-approved “vaccine” called Comirnaty. This “legal opinion” was both faulty and suspiciously convenient at the time it was issued.
Pfizer stated that although similar, the two “vaccines” were legally distinct from each other and were not the same. In addition, Comirnaty wasn’t available at the time and only now supposedly is being used, a year-plus from the DoD mandate. Pfizer mentioned at the time of the mandate that they would exhaust existing supplies of the EUA “vaccine” before issuing Comirnaty as its “replacement.”
At the same time when the military mandate was being implemented, the DoD authorized alternative “vaccines” other than the Pfizer jab if the recipient didn’t want to take the Pfizer product (I believe these were the J&J, Moderna, and the Astra-Zeneca shots.).
4a. It’s curious that the only “vaccine” that the military could impose on its troops was the Pfizer product and yet the DoD authorized other EUA shots in its place. My conclusion for this was that it provided additional legal liability “shielding” if the military member suffered an adverse event by “voluntarily” choosing an EUA “vaccine” versus the FDA-approved one. Technically, the only “vaccine” that should’ve been given to military members was the Pfizer shot, and none other. (My suspicion tells me that the DoD did this because it was aware of the anecdotal stories coming out of people collapsing and dying after getting the Pfizer shot, and so they wanted to give the vaccine hesitant an easy “out” from the “officially mandated” shot.)
4b. Ditto for Pfizer on the legal liability “shielding” provided by law for an EUA medicine. Pfizer is legally protected for those taking the EUA jab versus the FDA-approved jab. What I foresee in future litigation is that Pfizer will state that it was the DoD and not them who forced their personnel into taking an EUA shot; instead, the DoD should’ve waited for the “approved” Comirnaty product to roll out. The DoD’s argument will be that this was a “national emergency,” the situation was extremely fluid, and time was of the essence in order to protect its personnel. To an unbiased observer, both arguments should fail on their merits.
According to the DMED data that was leaked earlier this year, there was a dramatic increase of illnesses and diseases across the board for military members after the “vaccine” mandate. In addition, I believe there were only about ~30 direct COVID fatalities in the military this past year and a half (I’d like to see the previous data on flu deaths to see how that compares), which tells me for the military, this was not an “emergency” of any kind that necessitated a need for the mandate (In comparison, in 2021 there were ~700 suicides and accidental deaths in the military). In addition, I’m pretty confident this DMED data was (and is) readily available and known to mid and senior-level DoD leadership and YET they did nothing and have done nothing to change course and adapt to the trending information.
As a conspicuous corollary to the above, the DoD does authorize exemptions to vaccine mandates for religious, medical, and personal reasons. Prior to the COVID-19 shot, military personnel who invoked a religious exemption were routinely given one without needing to thoroughly justify the request. This all changed for this mandate, and even in spite of personnel having to explain in detail their exemption requests, almost all submission requests were routinely denied. During the recent 5th Circuit Appellate Court decision against the Air Force, the Court noted the AF only granted religious exemptions to those who were separating within a year of the mandate, but not to anyone else. The Court also noted that the AF justification for denying exemptions appeared to be “canned” rejection replies instead of responding to each request individually (as is required). IOW, the Court said the AF was violating its own regulations in the unequal treatment of their people. (Note: this ruling only granted a permanent injunction status against the AF vax mandate until a final ruling is made; the actual trial over the vax mandate is yet to take place. However, after reading the Appellate ruling, it’s readily apparent that the current AF argument is extremely weak and I wouldn’t be surprised if they move for dismissal as this case is now “moot” due to the new NDAA that revokes the vax mandate. Hopefully the court will not agree to the dismissal, as this should go all the way to SCOTUS for ~final ruling.)
I completely agree with your husband about maintaining proper military discipline and order. This is absolutely necessary in order to accomplish the mission. However… there is a huge difference between being ordered to do something questionable (i.e. wash the Colonel’s personal car on a Saturday) versus being forced to take a medicine whose effects aren’t fully known and might not be reversible. Although you know that the former is most likely an illegal order, an obedient subordinate will go ahead and wash the damn car on Saturday and then pay a visit to the Inspector General’s office on Monday. You really can’t do that with the “vaccine” mandate. Being forced to take an experimental medicine that could potentially kill or injure you for the rest of your life is a completely different set of circumstances, as it carries an obligation that can continue well past your time in military service. I’ve heard that the DoD has ~promised to take care of any members who might get injured by the “vaccine,” but what will most likely happen (re: the Agent Orange and Gulf War Syndrome cases), the DoD will fight and deny and delay any responsibility for these injuries until they can’t anymore. This will mean years and years of suffering for injured Vets and their families before they’re finally given the proper care (if it even helps).
When you combine the above with the fact that Big Pharma has been repeatedly fined and admitted civil and criminal guilt for falsifying clinical trial data and bribing medical professionals in order to sell previous products, it doesn’t take much of a leap to assume they’re doing the same here, but on a scale that’s magnitudes above what they’ve done before.
IOW if they end up making $500 billion on this scam but later fined $400 billion for this fraud, they’ll still be $100 billion ahead at the end (minus the political bribes and professional kickbacks, but that’s the game they play here).
As to your first point, u/Hardcastle6 provided the following link:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/1107?_gl=1
The anon's commentary and direct experience trying to fight this is interesting, worth the read (~a third of the way down this post from the top, currently). His experience correlates to your point 6.
Your point about what constitutes "an emergency" is well-taken, also a solid argument against those military mandates. As anon Hardcastle6 stated, in his twenty-six year career he'd never encountered the blatant disregard for the law by those up the chain of command as he fought these mandates.
As many of us have seen firsthand, all voices of reason and sanity, all medical refutations of the marxist narratives were censored and silenced.