How It Started: The Department of Defense dutifully enacted Biden’s vaccine mandate and had what eventually morphed into “zero tolerance” policies for service members requesting religious exemptions or who had already had COVID19.
Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, has contracted COVID-19 and has isolated himself following a positive test, military officials said Monday.Milley has experienced “very minor symptoms” and will be to perform all of his duties while working from a remote location, Joint Chiefs spokesman Col. Dave Butler said in an official statement.All seven other Joint Chiefs “except for one” were negative for COVID-19 in tests performed Sunday, Butler said.The Marine Corps announced separately that Commandant David Berger had also tested positive, the Military Times and The Washington Post reported.
Another of the “sophisticated and vaccinated” is now added to a growing list of those who have been infected, most likely with the Omicron variant.
Legal Insurrection readers may recall that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, vaccinated and boosted, also came down with “covid.”
Despite the big vaccine push, the virus is surging through the ranks.
The military has been seeing a sharp uptick in cases among service members in recent weeks, continuing a trend that began during the holiday season.The DOD reported last week that there were 32,912 Covid-19 cases in service members around the world, marking a dramatic increase from one week earlier, when there were 13,940 cases across the military. Just before Christmas, the number was a far lower, at 5,285 cases.
We wish all our service members, including Milley, a swift recovery and a return to robust good health. We hope everyone enjoys their newfound and likely more effective natural immunity.
Meanwhile, between the Biden administration’s mandate and national defense decision, the US Army is having a challenging time meeting its recruiting goals. It turns out the decision to essentially shut down everything in 2020 had unintended consequences.
They are now offering a reasonably hefty bonus for signing up.
The U.S. Army, for the first time, is offering a maximum enlistment bonus of $50,000 to highly skilled recruits who join for six years, The Associated Press has learned, as the service struggles to lure soldiers into certain critical jobs during the continuing pandemic.Maj. Gen. Kevin Vereen, head of Army Recruiting Command, told AP that shuttered schools and the competitive job market over the past year have posed significant challenges for recruiters. So heading into the most difficult months of the year for recruiting, the Army is hoping that some extra cash and a few other changes will entice qualified young people to sign up.“We are still living the implications of 2020 and the onset of COVID, when the school systems basically shut down,” said Vereen. “We lost a full class of young men and women that we didn’t have contact with, face-to-face.”
The Covid policy may be an issue, but Afghanistan and transgender shows at military bases are likely contributing factors. It will be interesting to see if $50,000 is enough to make America’s young men and women forget the complete ineptness of Biden and his political choices for our military.
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