Sincere, not insubordinate.
One unvaccinated Lieutenant Colonel's response to being called a threat
Disclaimer: This is an opinion piece. I do not speak for the Department of Defense or the Department of the Air Force.
Note: I am an active-duty Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Air Force serving in a United States Space Force unit. I have declined to take the COVID-19 vaccine and I am seeking a vaccine accommodation waiver from Space Systems Command for both the COVID-19 and influenza vaccines. My accommodation request is based on a sincerely held-religious belief, moral objection, and conscientious objection in accordance with the Department of the Air Force guidance. I have witnessed and been privy to poor leadership engagement on this issue across the military spectrum, but I am grateful the current Delta Commander who I am serving under believes in respecting the Department of the Air Force’s processes and showing professional and personal respect to all members of the command regardless of their vaccination status.
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On 7 January 2022 Military Times published commentary by Major General (retired) Dennis Laich and Colonel (retired) Lawrence Wilkerson titled Insurrection has led to dereliction of duty. I encourage you to read the commentary yourself before reading mine to draw your own conclusions.
In a meandering essay Laich and Wilkerson attempt to make an argument that current senior Pentagon leaders are being derelict in their duty by not dismissing unvaccinated military members in a manner which Laich and Wilkerson approve of. The main thesis is: military members who have not taken their COVID-19 shots are insubordinate and because they still wear a uniform and are a danger, this is the most threatening issue facing the military.
It is a bold statement to tell a very small group of people they are the most threatening issue facing the world’s strongest military. Trust me, the unvaccinated are not that powerful.
“Through this combination of mass insubordination and dereliction of duty at the highest ranks, the U.S. military has placed itself in a very dangerous position that could well lead to catastrophic failure.”
-- Major General (retired) Dennis Laich and Colonel (retired) Lawrence Wilkerson
The 2021 Military Vaccination Campaign
When COVID-19 shots were first made available to military members in January 2021 a strong campaign to vaccinate every military member kicked off and those in the Armed Services have faced extremely strong personal and institutional pressure to roll up their sleeves. There have been high levels of compliance even while the actual mandate policy put in place August 2021 has been unpopular as a matter of principle within the ranks.
The general military approach to achieve compliance prior to the mandate has been referred to by many military members as “name and shame” and a “coercive f*cking campaign” (not to be confused with the Combined Federal Campaign, which members often feel the same way about). In the past year many military members, civilian defense officials, and elected leaders have implicitly, and in many cases explicitly, chastised the unvaccinated. The onslaught of unwarranted but documented charges designed to nudge maximum acceptance of the voluntary and then mandated vaccines have included:
the unvaccinated don’t care about their family | friends | unit | community,
they are irresponsible,
they are scientifically illiterate,
they are selfish,
they are poor leaders,
they are cowards,
they are unintelligent,
and now, thanks to Laich and Wilkerson, they are insubordinate and a dangerous threat.
Those accusations have done damage in units across the military driving unnecessary wedges of distrust and have made people needlessly question unvaccinated members’ loyalty or contributions to the mission. They are especially serious accusations to levy against a military member because if they were actually true, then as Laich and Wilkerson contend, they should rightfully be shown the door at the first opportunity.
Thankfully these charges and Laich and Wilkerson’s thesis do not apply to the unvaccinated military members they reference or that I continue to faithfully serve with.
“A reasonable person might wonder how any organization, especially one supposedly steeped in ‘good order and discipline,’ can function with thousands of its members being insubordinate.”
-- Major General (retired) Dennis Laich and Colonel (retired) Lawrence Wilkerson
Who are the Unvaccinated?
Military members who did not comply with the August 2021 Department of Defense COVID-19 vaccine mandate generally fall into 3 categories:
Those who refused to take the shots and did not seek an accommodation of any sort.
Those who requested a medical accommodation.
Those who requested a religious, moral, or conscientious objection accommodation.
Military members have many reasons for why they choose options 1, 2, or 3 and I have no desire to address all the personal calculus that might go into a military member’s hard decision to potentially risk promotions, their military caeer, financial livelihood, military benefits, retirement package, future opportunities, and reputation. But Laich and Wilkerson imply the military is needlessly enabling those who have chosen this difficult path.
Is the Military Enabling the Unvaccinated?
Laich and Wilkerson have not done their homework or presented all the facts. A main premise of their thesis is the military is dragging its feet to separate personnel.
“Although defense and service leaders have said they intend to separate any member — active, Guard or reserve — who refuses to get vaccinated, this process is expected to take at least half a year.”
-- Major General (retired) Dennis Laich and Colonel (retired) Lawrence Wilkerson
Category 1 — Outright refusal
The various active duty COVID-19 vaccination deadlines were set for November and December and since then headlines abound about military members who have been removed or pushed out of the military for not receiving the mandatory vaccines. This is easily discovered information, the omission in their essay is glaring, and the reader could rightly question Laich and Wilkerson’s motivations for implying the Armed Services are not taking action when in fact they are.
Category 2 and 3 — Medical and other objections
For those members in category 2 and 3 there are service-specific processes to seek vaccine accommodations and members are following them. These processes were not designed, written, or approved by the members seeking accommodations. These members did not create the appeals processes that exist in some of the Armed Services for requesting a denied accommodation to be reviewed. The members who chose to exercise their right to seek an accommodation were handed a process and the vast majority of those left in the military who are unvaccinated are now following it.
“Despite a clear, lawful order to get vaccinated, tens of thousands of active duty (9,500 Marines, 5,360 sailors, 8,000 airmen and guardians, and 9,700 soldiers) and reserve and National Guard service members have refused to be vaccinated, thereby disobeying a lawful order and being insubordinate.
-- Major General (retired) Dennis Laich and Colonel (retired) Lawrence Wilkerson
That does not appear good enough for Laich and Wilkerson. They have lumped all unvaccinated together, declared them insubordinate, and in turn called them a threat.
What is Insubordination?
“Insubordination in the military is the act of disobeying a lawful order of one’s superior and is punishable under Article 91 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”
-- Major General (retired) Dennis Laich and Colonel (retired) Lawrence Wilkerson
The definition of insubordination is clear but the application of the definition has been tortured by Laich and Wilkerson. The general rule for vaccine accommodation requests in the military is a member has an automatically approved temporary exemption until the request is officially approved or denied. In my case I currently have no obligation to take the COVID-19 vaccine and I am under no order to violate the temporary exemption. To call me or the vast majority of unvaccinated military members today who are waiting on exemption package processing insubordinate for disobedience defies logic. Laich and Wilkerson may not like the rules or the timelines but accusing military members of insubordination when it is not true is professional malpractice and purposefully divisive.
My Conclusions
Major General (retired) Laich and Colonel (retired) Wilkerson accuse senior uniformed officials of dereliction of duty but also suggest officials should pursue accelerated separation actions depriving military members of the due process of long-standing and established waiver processes.
Laich and Wilkerson, two retired senior military officers, have publicly recommended actual dereliction of duty to avert their version of theoretical dereliction of duty.
Current and retired military leaders should publicly and privately ask Laich and Wilkerson to stop suggesting military members are denied due process. The optics are bad and more importantly it is wrong.
Laich and Wilkerson threw the “word-grenade” insurrection into the title of their essay but never actually addressed the term. Maybe the editor made a decision for them, but are the authors implying the actions of 6 January 2021 are somehow comparable or related to military members choosing not to be vaccinated? We don’t know because they failed to directly address the topic raised in their title but they did choose a politically-charged word for an article about people they claim might be inappropriately politicizing the vaccine.
This is an extremely dangerous and divisive implied message and not founded in any fact.
More to the point, it appears Laich and Wilkerson might believe I am akin to a “terrorist” for holding firm to a personal conviction. How many current senior leaders trained in the same schools and cut from the same cloth believe the same thing about me and those like me?
Laich and Wilkerson have not done their homework about the progress the military has made in removing members who refused the vaccines and did not receive a waiver accommodation.
Whether you believe people should be removed or not, headlines abound about military members who have been removed or pushed out of the military for not receiving the mandatory vaccines.
This is easily discovered information, the omission is glaring, and the reader could rightly question their motivations for implying the Armed Services are not taking action when in fact they are.
Laich and Wilkerson’s arguments are partially based on debunked assumptions such as unvaccinated members are posing a COVID-19 health risk to vaccinated members.
Laich and Wilkerson conclude senior uniformed officials are dangerously “exposing vaccinated troops to the unvaccinated”. They may not be aware the vaccinated are spreading COVID-19 just as well as the unvaccinated but the evidence is clear they are.
I can’t help but wonder what other COVID-19 or vaccine misinformation they believe.
The military members today who are faithfully and safely serving while working within the vaccine accommodation processes afforded to them are worthy of the same respect as their vaccinated counterparts.
It is my honor and privilege to serve the American people.
Every day is another exciting opportunity to execute my small slice of responsibility to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Defending the Constitution also means defending the rights it bestows on Major General (retired) Laich and Colonel (retired) Wilkerson to choose what they believe and to speak freely; even when they believe I should not be allowed to continue to serve my country in uniform.
The military members who are seeking accommodations and risking careers, promotions, livelihoods, military benefits, stability, retirement packages, and reputations are not doing so to be difficult. Laich and Wilkerson incorrectly and unprofessionally call them insubordinate. They purposefully sow distrust against these members by calling them disobedient even when they have approved temporary exemptions.
The military members in question have sincerely-held beliefs, they have sincerely-held concerns, and they hold a sincerely-held conviction they can continue to serve with appropriate accommodations.
Major General and Colonel, I am sincere, not insubordinate.
What’s Next?
Bottom line: I believe Major General (retired) Laich and Colonel (retired) Wilkerson will get their wish.
At the time of this writing the military services have reported no approved vaccine accommodation requests in the “religious” category. Members who have an accommodation request submitted believe the teams processing the paperwork are good people who probably wish they could stamp “APPROVED” in bold red letters because they understand there is only a theoretical and not real adverse impact on the military in most cases. However, the institutional pressure for 100% vaccination status at all costs is so high, most people assume the senior leaders responsible to make a decision will not actually feel empowered to approve any requests. A .000 batting average in the Department of Defense is hard to argue with.
God bless the United States of America, the United States Armed Services, and the United States Armed Services members…whatever their vaccination status may be.
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Lt Col Fields, there are MANY on base who share your sentiments in the contractor space as well. I was told by a coworker (he's an elitist) that they didn't want to talk to me because I was unvaccinated. Thankfully, they apologized shortly after.