{"id":1475756,"date":"2022-05-15T07:45:35","date_gmt":"2022-05-15T11:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1475756"},"modified":"2022-05-15T07:45:46","modified_gmt":"2022-05-15T11:45:46","slug":"army-covid-vax-objectors-stranded-in-limbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/army-covid-vax-objectors-stranded-in-limbo\/","title":{"rendered":"Army COVID Vax Objectors Stranded in Limbo"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Farmy-covid-vax-objectors-stranded-in-limbo%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1475756&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/justthenews.com\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/social_media_share\/public\/2022-02\/6475945.jpg?h=f78eaf9c&#038;itok=83ivE85H\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Some service members requesting religious exemptions from vaccine mandates are separated from their families indefinitely, and a subset has also been kicked off base, according to a legal group aiding them and challenging the military mandate in court.<\/p>\n<p>The Army is stalling religious accommodation requests (RARs) from service members seeking exemptions from the military&#8217;s sweeping COVID-19 vaccination mandate, leaving objectors in &#8220;limbo and frozen in time,&#8221; claims religious freedom legal defense organization Liberty Counsel.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Army will not process the RARs,&#8221; wrote Mat Staver, chairman and founder of the Christian nonprofit. &#8220;Instead, it is effectively holding hostage every military member who files an RAR, whether the member is in the states or in a foreign country. The Army hopes the pressure of being separated from family with their careers frozen will force the faithful to bow the knee to Joe Biden.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lc.org\/newsroom\/details\/220429-im-being-held-hostage\">Liberty Counsel shared a message<\/a> April 29 from &#8220;Sheldon,&#8221; an Army service member who is stuck in South Korea even though his one-year &#8220;unaccompanied&#8221; tour ended in December.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m being held hostage here, separated from my family, including my 9-month-old daughter who barely knows me because of my pending exemption request,\u201d Sheldon wrote, adding that his wife&#8217;s &#8220;mental health is deteriorating&#8221; under the stress of indefinite separation.<\/p>\n<p>Staver told Just the News his organization was working with about 1,100 service members and does calls every week to gather more stories.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>One service member transferring from Hawaii to Florida is stuck without family in Alabama, a required training location before Florida, while an intended East Coast transfer who already sent a car and furniture is stuck in California and can&#8217;t live on base, according to Staver.<\/p>\n<p>Army media relations officer Lt. Col. Terry Kelley told Just the News he couldn&#8217;t comment on a pseudonymous service member&#8217;s case, but wrote in an email he was &#8220;unaware of any policy directing unvaccinated Soldiers must reside off base.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Given the Army&#8217;s response, Staver clarified &#8220;there is no written policy&#8221; but that Liberty Counsel has dealt with several situations where a soldier or couple was verbally ordered to leave the base and given no housing reimbursement, leading some to live out of their cars.<\/p>\n<p>Staver said he would ask service members to provide any written explanations they were given for eviction for Just the News to review.<\/p>\n<p>Kelley also shared <a href=\"https:\/\/www.army.mil\/article\/256433\/department_of_the_army_announces_updated_covid_19_vaccination_statistics\">Army vaccination rates and exemption request tallies<\/a> as of May 5. Among 4,302 religious requests, eight have been approved and 927 rejected.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re not denying anybody&#8221; the chance to appeal, just sitting on requests to avoid litigation, Staver said. By keeping service members in limbo and putting them on menial details such as &#8220;broom closet&#8221; work, the Army&#8217;s goal is coercing vaccinations, he claimed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some service members requesting religious exemptions from vaccine mandates are separated from their families indefinitely, and a subset has also been kicked off base, according to a legal group aiding<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":498,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1475756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1475756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1475756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1475756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1475756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}