{"id":1642312,"date":"2022-09-16T05:04:26","date_gmt":"2022-09-16T09:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1642312"},"modified":"2022-09-16T05:04:55","modified_gmt":"2022-09-16T09:04:55","slug":"nearly-50-members-of-congress-call-on-pentagon-to-end-military-vaccine-mandate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/nearly-50-members-of-congress-call-on-pentagon-to-end-military-vaccine-mandate\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly 50 Members of Congress Call on Pentagon to End Military Vaccine Mandate"},"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\">26<\/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%2Fnearly-50-members-of-congress-call-on-pentagon-to-end-military-vaccine-mandate%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=1642312&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--><p>Nearly 50 Republican lawmakers, led by Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), have called on the\u00a0Department of Defense (DOD) to withdraw its COVID-19 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-vaccine-mandate\">vaccine mandate<\/a> for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-military\">military<\/a> members, citing concerns over the mandate\u2019s impact on\u00a0the readiness of the U.S. Armed Forces.<\/p>\n<p>In a letter to\u00a0Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin dated Sept. 15 (<a href=\"https:\/\/lc.org\/091422GOPLettertoAustin.pdf\">pdf<\/a>), lawmakers, including\u00a0Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Thomas Massie\u00a0(R-Ky.), expressed their \u201cgrave concerns\u201d over the impact of the mandate, particularly with regard to the\u00a0U.S. Army.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a result of your mandate, eight percent of the Army\u2019s approximately 1 million soldiers face expulsion, Army recruiters cannot meet their FY22 target, and the Army has cut its projected FY23 end strength by 12,000 soldiers,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Referring to Russia\u2019s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, lawmakers noted that the U.S. military currently faces\u00a0\u201ca self-imposed readiness crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Citing \u201csparse\u201d data from the Department of Army, they noted that \u201cat least 40,000 National Guardsmen, 20,000 Army Reservists, and at least 15,000 Active Army Soldiers\u201d have not yet received a COVID-19 shot and subsequently face being discharged from service.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Department of Defense\u2019s own Covid response page indicates that approximately 900,000 soldiers are fully vaccinated out of the 1 million soldiers in the Army, Army Reserve, and Army National Guard,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Lawmakers pointed to\u00a0testimony delivered in July by\u00a0Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, Gen. Joseph Martin, before the\u00a0House Armed Services Committee. During that testimony,\u00a0Martin stated that \u201cless than 20,000\u201d people were\u00a0facing discharge for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine, much less than the initial figures that officials had provided.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2022\/07\/21\/GettyImages-1408686633-1200x800.jpg\"><\/a> Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) speaks during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, on July 14, 2022. (Tasos Katopodis\/Getty Images) \u2018Inquiries Remain Unanswered\u2019 <\/p>\n<p>However, lawmakers in their letter to the DOD\u00a0noted that the Army has not published official data pertaining to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nearly 50 Republican lawmakers, led by Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), have called on the\u00a0Department of Defense (DOD) to withdraw its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for military members, citing concerns over the mandate\u2019s impact on\u00a0the readiness of the U.S. Armed Forces. In a letter to\u00a0Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin dated Sept. 15 (pdf), lawmakers, including\u00a0Reps. Chip Roy [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1642312","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\/1642312","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\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1642312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642312\/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=1642312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1642312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1642312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}