Leak Reveals Doomed Vaccine Exemption Requests in US Coast Guard

COVID-19 vaccine exemption requests were seemingly doomed at the US Coast Guard, one of the five branches of the US military.

A leak revealed commanders were supplied with “pre-written denials” they could just paste to refuse service personnel any chance of being exempt, thus aggressively pushing vaccination.

Exemption Request Reply Predetermined

In its first year after taking office, Biden made COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for the entire US military, granting a tiny number of exemptions and causing an exodus of tens of thousands of qualified, highly valuable service members.

Biden’s military vaccination mandate was only ended at the insistence of the Republicans after the swearing-in of the new Congress.

The situation with requesting a vaccine exemption in the US Coast Guard appears to have been particularly abysmal. Internal documents show the military branch had “pre-written justifications” it could use in order to deny such requests, reports The Daily Caller.

The outlet obtained the papers which show the US Coast Guard prepared 30 different justifications for refusal, based on each service member’s position and stationing location.  

It notes that it is impossible to tell at the present moment how the pre-written rejections were applied to each individual request for a vaccine exemption.

However, the leaked papers indicate the Coast Guard probably didn’t consider individually each applicant’s unique circumstances.

The report pointed out the protection of Americans’ First Amendment rights necessitates that each individual’s request is adequately reviewed.

According to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the US military can override religious accommodations only when it can demonstrate a “compelling interest” in doing so.

Coast Guard Ended Up Approving 0.88% of Religious Requests

With the pre-written text, all that a commander at the Coast Guard had to do to reject an application was to “sign,” according to Dwight Stirling, a former military lawyer who founded a nonprofit called Center for Law and Military Policy.

Mike Rose, a general counsel for STARRS (“Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services), admitted the leaked documents seemed to contain statements written in advance, which could be “applied automatically” to individual Coast Guardsmen. 

The leaked papers contain “copy-paste” replies to “multiple religious exemptions” over the COVID-19 vaccine. 

Thus, the first response is suitable for turning down Coast Guard members’ requests for exemption from “all future vaccines” made with the viral vector or mRNA technology.

In another response, Coast Guard commanders would snub requests for exemption from “any COVID-19 vaccine.”  At the same time, the leaked documents do not seem to have any responses that approve vaccination exemption requests. 

A spokesperson for the US Coast Guard informed the service received a total of 1,350 requests for a religious exemption to Sleepy Joe’s coronavirus vaccination mandate introduced in August 2021. 

However, it approved only 12 of those, or only 0.88%, together with eight “permanent medical exemptions.” 

This article appeared in Mainstpress and has been published here with permission.

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