Source: Indiana National Guard to boot up to 1,000 troops for refusing Covid vaccine -- no drill, no pay started THIS WEEKEND
Reports of sudden heart attacks among Guardsmen in their 30s as Indiana National Guard enforces vax mandate on troops; Holcomb silent
A longtime officer in the Indiana National Guard says the Guard is about to kick out up to 1,000 Guardsmen in Indiana who have refused to get the Covid-19 vaccine and says the resulting loss of troops will “decimate” the force.
“I was told by people who would know that there’s about 1,000 [refusals],” he said. “They said it’s a little less than that, and it’s gone down a little bit because there were some last-minute takers. But I’m guessing it’s probably still several hundred that have just outright refused.”
The Fourth of July weekend was the first weekend that Guardsmen who refused the vaccine were not allowed to drill and so would not be paid. But troops don’t normally drill on the Fourth of July weekend, so the order took effect this weekend, for all intents and purposes.
In addition to “refusals” — people who have refused the vaccine and not applied for an exemption — there are another 300-400 Guardsmen who have applied for either a religious or medical exemption, according to the source. The great majority of these are religious. All or almost all are pending, with very few having been approved nationwide, according to reports.
“The Army Guard [in Indiana] is about 10,000 soldiers,” says the officer. “If you’re talking about 1,000 people, that’s 10 percent of the force. If we lost 10 percent of our soldiers overnight, we would be seriously hobbled in our effectiveness, especially since it’s not just one unit, it’s going to be across all units. There would be a serious problem for the Guard.”
The National Guard is under state command, but can also be mobilized under federal orders, under Title 10 of the U.S. Code.
The Guard can also be deployed under Title 32 of the U.S. Code, serving under state command but paid with federal money.
Regardless, the source says, the vaccine mandate appears to be an “unlawful order” because none of the vaccines available in the United States have been given full approval by the FDA and CDC, and Army regulations prohibit the Army from mandating that soldiers take an emergency-use vaccine, unless in extraordinary circumstances like a nuclear or biological attack.
Several Republican governors have pressured the Department of Defense to end the vaccine mandate, given that the Guard is mostly under state control.
Last week, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee wrote a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin asking for requests for religious exemptions to the vaccine mandate be granted to members of the Guard.
In June, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin sent a letter to Austin asking him to “indefinitely postpone” the vaccine mandate for the Army National Guard.
Indiana’s Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb, however, has so far been silent on the vaccine mandate for members of the military, including the Indiana National Guard.
Meanwhile, reports have surfaced of sudden deaths, with the officer who has served as an anonymous source for this story saying that another officer in his brigade told him in hushed tones recently of two full-time Guardsmen in their 30s who suddenly “dropped dead” of heart attacks.
“Yeah, soldiers do have heart attack and die sometimes,” he says. “But two in the same brigade? It just seems suspicious.”
Members of the Indiana National Guard live in every county in the state and usually drill in armories located in about one-third of Indiana’s 92 counties.
Last year, many National Guard units were involved with processing about 6,600 Afghans at Camp Atterbury in Southern Indiana.
About 30 members of the Indiana National Guard are now deployed to the Middle East as part of Operation Spartan Shield and Operation Inherent Resolve.
About 120 Guardsmen have been deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border for the last nine months as part of an effort led by Texas and Arizona to secure the border.
The Guard was also deployed in the state in February helping rescue people caught in a snowstorm, and in April, was helping test and prep M113 Armored Personnel Carriers to be sent to Ukraine as the United States began to wade into the conflict there.
The Guard was also called up by Holcomb last year to run a drive-thru “vaccine clinic” for kids in the large parking lot across from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
There has been no Indiana media coverage of the potential loss of 10 percent of the Indiana National Guard and no public discussion about what this may mean for the ability of the Guard to serve the state and serve as part of the U.S. military in defense of the nation.
Guardsmen who have refused the vaccine will be discharged through an administrative process and will not likely get an honorable discharge.
The process is expected to take time, with Guardsmen first appearing on AWOL reports.
After the “refusals,” the people who’ve requested religious exemptions will be next, Guardsmen have been led to believe.
“I think this is all purposeful. I really do,” says the officer. “If you look at the Biden administration and their budget goals, their budget goals include a reduction of military force…I think it’s all purposeful because it’s a twofer for them. They get to easily and quickly reduce troop levels, like Democrats always want to, and — as a bonus — the people they get rid of are the conservative Christians. And so it solves their ‘extremism in the military’ problem and allows them to more easily push PRIDE month and all this other liberal crap that they’re pushing on the soldiers right now.”
The process of separation — an administrative process in which a board of three higher-ranking officers typically hears the evidence and makes a decision — can take several months or up to a year.
But many Guardsmen may leave voluntarily, given the cutoff in pay.
Also, those who have received letters of reprimand for refusing the order to get the vaccine know that these are “career killers,” the source says, so many of them will likely also leave on their own.
A Navy board ruled that mandate was not a lawful order.
"Mosely’s attorney, R. Davis Younts, based the case on the fact that the government cannot force members of the military to take “experimental” medications, and therefore, the COVID-19 vaccine mandate is not a lawful order, according to Just the News."
https://www.westernjournal.com/us-officer-risked-refusing-pentagon-vaccine-order-navy-board-unanimously-confirmed-right-thing/
members of the military cannot be required to participate in medical experiments or to take unlicensed products; the covid injections are both. There are pending lawsuits.