What do people think of Trump reinstating "anti-covid vaccine" US military members and giving them back pay?
shareI have mixed reactions. On one side, I give a lot of deference for people to have the right to control their own healthcare decisions (especially as relates to this vaccine that turned out to have ambiguous benefits compared to what President Biden touted).
On the other hand, I feel that these service members were given a lawful order to get vaccinated and violating direct orders is absolutely unacceptable behavior in a professional military.
In the end, I accept the President’s authority as commander in chief to issue pardons like this. It reminds me a lot of the 1977 precedent by President Carter in pardoning the 50,000 men who evaded the Vietnam draft and fled to Canada.
Employers make the rules for their employees and within legal boundaries they are totally free to setup whichever rules they want.
Under Biden the Secretary of Defense mandated that all service members receive the COVID-19 vaccine in 2021 and rescinded the mandate in 2023, all perfectly fine.
Under Trump with a different Secretary of Defense they reinstate soldiers who had disobeyed orders from their superiors and that's not fine, even if they believe the orders made no sense, it's military 101 that soldiers cannot disobey orders and if they do anyway they get discharged.
What do you think will reinstated soldiers do the next time they do not agree with an order they get from a superior?
A pardon for a sentence they may have received is one thing, but reinstating disobedient soldiers is a nogo.
Would you obey a direct order to napalm a Vietnamese village that contained only women and children because the men were already identified as out crawling around in tunnels?
I might, but that isn't the question.