The Navy is using demotions, pay cuts and travel prohibition for SEALS who have religious objections to receiving the vaccine
A developing number of U.S. Navy SEALS who are using a religious exemption to the Department of Defense’s (DOD) COVID-19 vaccine requirement are being threatened, and harassed into conforming, Fox News has discovered.
A progression of new orders by the Navy are promising extreme discipline, including downgrades, pay cuts and a restriction on travel for SEALS, and other Navy administration individuals, who don’t follow the vaccine mandate. For SEALS who are currently seeking a religious exemption to the requirement, the process is almost impossible to effectively complete to get a waiver, Fox News has been told.
Michael Berry, First Liberty Institute’s overall advice and Lt. Col. U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, who is addressing roughly 34 well-trained SEALS and two reservists, let Fox News know that the Navy’s new orders are illicit and encroach upon First Amendment freedoms.
“Purging our military of its elite servicemembers is detrimental to national security. Doing so because the Commander in Chief refuses to accommodate their religious convictions is abhorrent to the Constitution. Their years of experience and leadership in service to our nation is immeasurable and irreplaceable,” Berry told Fox News.
Berry proceeded, “Remove a SEAL from special warfare, reduce his salary, and force him to repay his training is purely vindictive and punitive. And it’s illegal. They have nothing to do with a virus.” Berry’s customers have a joined amount of more than 350 years of military service and more than 100 combat deployments.
Another order by the Navy’s COVID Consolidated Disposition Authority (CCDA) gave yesterday expresses that if SEALs decline the vaccine, the Navy may seek to retrieve from every individual SEAL the money the government has spent on training them. For an individual SEAL, the training costs alone is assessed to adding up to a few million dollars.
“The CCDA may seek recoupment of applicable bonuses, special and incentive pays, and the cost of training and education for service members refusing the vaccine,” reads the document.
On Oct. 6, the Navy gave an order restricting all authority and non-official travel for non-immunized help individuals and their spouses and dependents.
Another internal document investigated by Fox News expresses that SEALS, as special operations (SO) duty personnel, who decline to get the vaccine because ofreligious or personal beliefs, will be “disqualified” from SO duty. That would mean a SEAL trying to have religious exemption would lose his or her “special warfare” pay due to SO status. However, this doesn’t apply to SEALS who are using medical objections to getting the vaccine.
The Navy told administration individuals on Thursday that Nov. 14 is the cutoff time for deployment ready mariners to have either their additional opportunity of a two-portion immunization or the single shot of a one-portion antibody. Reservists have until Dec. 14.
One occurrence of badgering by a supervisorial official toward a his strict SEAL issues with the immunization seems to go against the Navy’s true explanation that all assistance individuals can look for exceptions from the order whenever wanted.
As per a source familiar, when one SEAL informed his commander that he was intending to look for a religious exemption, the official said that he would need to surrender his Special Warfare pin, otherwise called a “trident.” If a SEAL loses the privilege of wearing a Trident, the individual in question is taken out from the SEAL community group totally and sent back to be a standard mariner, notwithstanding now and again, long periods of hard procured special operator status.
Lt. Cdr. Patricia Kreuzberger let Fox News know that in spite of the fact that she was unable to talk explicitly on issues influencing the SEALS, administration individuals are entitled to seek religious exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccination mandate.
“Mandatory vaccination for our servicemembers is a lawful order that maximizes our operational effectiveness. To be world-wide deployable, Naval personnel must be medically qualified which includes being up-to-date on required vaccinations. Servicemembers are entitled to seek religious exemptions and those requests will be considered in keeping with current Navy policy.”
She likewise said that the Navy has been investigating administration individuals’ documented strict exclusions to the order on a one case at a time case premise. She would not expand on the quantity of exceptions that have been documented, dismissed or supported by the military.
The Navy said Thursday in a news discharge that more than 98% of well-trained assistance individuals have met the “readiness responsibility” by beginning or finishing a COVIV-19 vaccination series.
First Liberty plans to file a complaint soon for the SEALS utilizing pseudonyms and hiding locations in order to keep the identities of the service members safe, who fear retaliation from Navy leadership.
“SEALs have invested their lives into serving this nation, dedicating years of their lives and millions of taxpayer dollars in training to be the most elite fighting force on the face of the earth. Yet, the Commander in Chief would simply kick them out of the Navy, send them to jail, and force them to repay the nation for their training—all for simply declining a vaccine,” said Berry.