Posted on 11/15/2021 5:29:54 PM PST by ducttape45
The Pentagon can require Oklahoma National Guard members to get the COVID-19 vaccine, despite the state’s highest-ranking military official insisting he will not mandate that members be inoculated, the Defense Department’s top spokesman said Monday.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “has the authorities he needs to require this vaccine across the force, including the National Guard,” press secretary John Kirby told reporters.
“It is a lawful order for National Guardsmen to receive the COVID vaccine. It is a lawful order,” Kirby later said. “Refusing to do that, absent an approved exemption, puts them in the same potential [for punishment] as active-duty members who refuse the vaccine.”
Austin in mid-September mandated that all uniformed personnel get vaccinated for the coronavirus, although the deadline to do so varies by branch.
Last week, however, the newly appointed commander of the Oklahoma National Guard, Army Brig. Gen. Thomas Mancino, wrote in a memo that no member of the Oklahoma National Guard will be required to get vaccinated.
Mancino further wrote that “no negative administrative or legal action will be taken” against guardsmen who refuse to get vaccinated.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R), who has vocally opposed vaccine mandates, said Wednesday he appointed Mancino to serve as the state’s adjutant general and National Guard commander, though he still has to be confirmed by the state Senate.
Stitt earlier this month also sent Austin a letter asking him to suspend the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate for members of the Oklahoma National Guard.
Kirby said Austin had not reached out to Stitt but will “respond appropriately.”
He also said guardsmen are not shielded from the mandate under Title 32 — which allows governors to mobilize troops within their state — because they’re still federally funded when mobilized for federal active-duty military service.
Asked whether Austin plans to reach out to other governors to prevent a snowball effect of other state leaders also refusing to mandate the shot for their Guard troops, Kirby said the Pentagon chief had no plans to do so.
“If there's a snowball effect, we haven't seen it yet,” Kirby said. “If he feels like that’s a necessary thing to do, he certainly would. But it’s not something that he’s planning on doing right now.”
Vaccine Mandate Ping List
Let’s go Pentagon....I know worn out at this point.
Ping.
If the vaccine was iron clad, shut down all infection, I’d be
a lot more sympathetic to a fully vaccinated military. Sadly,
the vaccination doesn’t accomplish much.
I just read this article on nursing home infections, and the
the infected are almost all vaccinated.
Why would I back vaccinating our troops. Nonsense!
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4013008/posts
If it wasn’t for the Pentagon, we wouldn’t need the Pentagon!
Yep. They’re making no bones about who the real enemy is.
No, it can't.
The Oklahoma National Guard has not been federalized at this point in time.
L-lloyd Austin can jam a running rusty chainsaw sideways up his lying Mitt-licking keester.
They have to destroy the military to fulfill the plans they have for the citizens.
Let’s go, L-lloyd!
Makes you wonder why all the hype about getting everyone mRNA’ed? The shots are not safe nor effective. My guess is they contain something they want everyone to have ... nanobots? damaged immune systems? sterilization? It’s not about health.
Yes it does, and it makes me wonder if there isn’t to all the speculation about “transhumanism” after all.
Cool! Get it on...bang a drum...get it on. I not only got popcorn, I got pistachios. These are the guys/women who should be carrying the load against Fedgov over-reach. Let the warriors go up against each other, rather than forcing civilians to take up arms and doing clandestine sniper ops.
Hopefully, Texas, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, and others will follow suit. With independent militaries, the red states will be in far stronger positions to resist the leftists in Washington.
This White Hater Obama plant Austin has destroyed our Military .
He needs to be charged with treason and jailed for life
Thank you.
Great plan .
Austin needs to be destroyed now .
I wonder if Inhofe managed to get those F-35’s for the guard yet? 🤔
ooops! Wrong thread, but thanks anyway for the ping.
The duly appointed leader of the Oklahoma National Guard, Brigadier General Thomas Mancino, didn’t ask for a permission slip from the Pentagon.
He made a decision about the Oklahoma National Guard, and that decision stands, regardless of what the Pentagon says.
This is the time for bold stands with no backing down.
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