Tag Archive for: Department of Defense

After Coast Guard Academy ‘Excommunicated’ Cadets For Refusing Vaccine, Pleas For Reinstatement Go Unanswered

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  • The Coast Guard Academy has not reinstated seven Coast Guard cadets discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine after the academy denied religious exemption requests, representatives of the cadets told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
  • The cadets hoped a new law nixing the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate would allow them to re-join.
  • “They are the only cadets that are getting screwed,” retired Coast Guard Vice Adm. William Dean Lee told the DCNF.

Seven Coast Guard cadets booted in September after commanders denied their vaccine exemption appeals were not reinstated after a last ditch effort to allow them to start the new semester, which began Wednesday, representatives of the cadets told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The cadets hoped that law overturning the Department of Defense (DOD) COVID-19 vaccine mandate would persuade the Academy to permit the cadets, already behind by one semester, to re-join with their cohort, one of the cadets involved and advocates for the group told the DCNF. Among the military schools, the Coast Guard Academy, which operates under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in peacetime, is the only one to have officially dismissed unvaccinated cadets, the advocates said.

“I sent a letter to the Coast Guard Academy superintendent asking him to use his administrative powers to have us go back in since the [National Defense Authorization Act] was signed by the president and the mandate should be lifted soon,” Sophia Galdamez, one of the seven discharged, told the DCNF.

“However, all he responded with is that it’s out of his control, and you don’t have authority over that decision. And for me and my family to have a happy holidays,” she added.

Although operating under DHS authority, the Coast Guard went along with the mandate after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced it in August 2021 as the FDA officially approved the first COVID-19 vaccines for use. Congress’ defense bill for 2023, signed into law on Dec. 23, overturned the service-wide vaccine mandate.

Despite being a semester behind the other cadets in their cohort, the seven could still achieve their commissions if the Coast Guard allowed them to rejoin, retired Coast Guard Vice Adm. William Dean Lee, who, along with retired Rear Adm. Peter J. Brown, is lobbying to have the cadets reinstated, told the DCNF. Cadet processing began Wednesday, while classes are slated to begin on Jan. 9.

After initially refusing the vaccine on the grounds of religious belief in the fall of 2021, “I was immediately treated differently than all my other classmates that were vaccinated,” Galdamez told the DCNF. “I was bullied by my command and administrators, faculty at the academy.”

Administrators confined her behind a plexiglass barrier at the back of the classroom, she told the DCNF. One teacher pulled her aside to commend her performance as a student, but said her unvaccinated status would impede academic progress, Galdamez said.

She and her fellow unvaccinated cadets submitted requests for religious exemptions, which authorities are required to review on an individual basis.

Citing the government’s “compelling interest in mission accomplishment,” the force’s time sensitive role in emergency response and high rate of interaction with the general public, Coast Guard adjudicator Capt. Eugenio S. Anzano shot down Galdamez’s exemption request in a letter, dated March 4, 2022, that was shared with the DCNF.

“I do not question the sincerity of your religious belief or whether vaccine requirements substantially burden your religious practice. The Coast Guard reserves the opportunity to make these determinations, but I do not need to address them here to resolve your request,” Anzano wrote.

When the Coast Guard denied Galdamez’s request, she appealed, but the answer remained firm. The Coast Guard struck down Galdamez’ appeal on May 2, according to a copy of the response letter shared with the DCNF.

Days after reporting to campus for the fall semester on Aug. 15, the cadets were called into the office and told they had 24 hours to pack and leave campus, Galdamez said, a statement echoed by Michael Rose, a pro-bono legal counsel for several of the cadets, according to The Day newspaper. Two of the cadets did not have homes to which to return.

The cadets were formally discharged on Sept. 23, according to Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services, where Rose serves as general counsel.

“I sent letters to the academy, senators have written letters on [sic] the cadets’ behalf. And so far we have heard nothing regarding our reinstatement or if I’d be able to finish my degree and commissions,” Galdamez told the DCNF Wednesday.

Academy superintendent Rear Adm. William Kelley acknowledged receipt of Galdamez’ letter and wished her a “good holiday season” but did not indicate future action in an email dated Dec. 22 that was shared with the DCNF.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina wrote to Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan pressing for the servicemembers’ reinstatement, according to a Dec. 22 letter the senator’s office shared with the DCNF.

Galdamez is one of thousands of servicemembers who remain in limbo as the DOD develops new guidance on COVID-19 vaccination, while lawsuits challenging the legality of the mandate and whether military leaders appropriately considered exemption requests continue to make their way through court.

The Air Force and Navy and Marine Corps have been placed under an temporary injunction against discharging unvaccinated troops, while the Army has paused separations.

“They are the only cadets that are getting screwed,” Lee told the DCNF.

The National Defense Authorization Act gave DOD a 30 day period to develop new COVID-19 guidance but stopped short of calling for reinstatement or restitution to the roughly 8,400 already discharged for refusing to receive the vaccine.

“The Coast Guard, in coordination with the Department of Defense, is evaluating policies with respect to previously separated members, including cadets,” a spokesperson for the Coast Guard told the DCNF.

“I think it’s important to let the service members back in, and for the service members to accept going back in, because this mandate and then the subsequent denial and basically excommunication of all these service members was getting rid of a good group of people … enlisted and officers alike that display true leadership qualities that are needed in our military at the moment,” Galdamez said to the DCNF.

The Coast Guard Academy did not return a phone call from the DCNF.

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: Coast Guard Illegally Denied Hundreds Of Vaccine Exemptions, Attorneys Say

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U.S. Secretary of Defense Carter and Transgenderism

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Department of Defense Secretary Ash Carter has issued instructions to all military branches that transgender people may now join the military and serve openly as to what gender they identify with and those currently serving may disclose themselves without any repercussions, or problems.  This paper is to bring to light that women, who identify as men, are looking to do a man’s job in the military.

The transgendered women who desire to become an artilleryman will face strength challenges.  It is not so much as opening a powder canister, or screwing on a fuze, it is the lifting of the round itself (97.7 lbs, 155mm).  Also, setting the weapon up for “action”, takes a lot of physical effort from swinging a sledge hammer, to a lot of pushing and pulling.

The person who loads the Howitzer is required to have the leg and upper body strength that is required to lift and chamber the round.  The method of chambering a round is done hydraulically, if the Howitzer is self-propelled, manually, if towed, but the rest is the same.

The infantry is quite different.  These people go on patrols, engage the enemy and they do this with an 80 pound rucksack on their back.  The infantryman’s upper body must be in top form.  They must also be able to carry their wounded to safety.  This means carrying the weight they have and the wounded soldier’s weight and equipment.  Women who transgender to men, can they fulfill these tasks which are primarily designed for men?

Secretary Ash Carter has said the military will pay for the sex re-assignments. Exactly, how does this fit into the roles of the military?  It has no defense purposes and it hinders the purpose of being combat ready.  Secretary Carter among other politicians are pandering and costing the taxpayers frivolous amounts of money by pandering to special interest groups.  The statement of frivolous amount of money is really not frivolous at all.  These surgeries are in excess of thirty to forty thousand dollars.  Also, to find the cadaver is an expensive process in itself.

Secretary Carter does not understand the term, “lost time”.  If a woman is re-assigned to be a man and if they are a member of the combat forces of the military, it may take them a year or better to return to normal duty status.  This results in lost time.  The taxpayer is still paying the person for a job they cannot do and it results in extending their enlistment to have the person do the work that needed to be done in the first place.  Since Secretary Carter has allowed this, our armed forces will experience more lost time than ever before.

Due to the physical nature of the Army and the Marines, the ground combat forces will lose an insurmountable number of people to the Air Force and the Navy.  While these two services have their own special combat operations, these two services are more technical within their job structures and do not rely as much with boots on the ground.

The Army and the Marines constantly rely on the physical aspects of getting the job done.  Women who transgender to men every element of standards must be reduced to accommodate these transgenders.  We must remember the women who participated in the Marine Combat Officers program.  They were cut because they failed the requirements of the course.  In the end, the combat arms element of the Army and the Marines will suffer great loses.  The standards will be so far degraded a 5-year old will pass the requirements necessary to become an artilleryman, or an infantryman.

Men who transgender to women is not a primary concern of this paper because of the nature of the military; any job in the military can be done by a man.

Any job in any branch of the armed services that requires the physical element of their job and each service will face a myriad of lost time when a transgender undergoes sex re-assignment.  Besides the cost of doing the re-assignment, it will cost the taxpayer in lost time wages because the healing process of this surgery may take up to two years for a full recovery and depending on the pay grade of the individual, the taxpayer can expect to pay out around $50,000 a year, or more in lost time wages, then expect to pay that much after the individual returns to full duty status.  Because of the stupidity of Secretary Ash Carter, he has cost the American taxpayer more money that is required to support the military personnel in the performance of their duties.

Caitlyn/Bruce Jenner maybe the poster child for transgenderism, but this is an apples/oranges conversation.  Jenner’s situation is that of a civilian.  No military service member can be equated to Jenner’s position, or vise-versa.  Every person in the military must maintain their fitness for duty and what Secretary Carter has done is allowing this to destroy the main purpose of the military which is to train and maintain their combat readiness for war.

We must also look at the possible disability status if something like this goes wrong.  If a person becomes injured in some way during the course of their service to the country, on a normal basis, a disability claim can be made.  If, one of these re-assignment surgeries goes wrong and it fails, the taxpayer will be on the hook for disability compensation.  We as taxpayers must look at this as an elective surgery, not as a necessity.  Look at this surgery as an elective it will have the propensity of releasing the taxpayer from all liabilities that are incurred from this surgery.

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Presidential Candidates, Members of Congress, and Governors Call for Military Right-to-Carry

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Following the murder of four U.S. Marines and a U.S. Navy sailor by a terrorist in Chattanooga, presidential candidates, including former Florida governor Jeb Bush (R), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (R), businessman Donald Trump, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker (R), and former U.S. Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), have called for a change in federal law to allow stateside military personnel to carry firearms for protection. In addition, the governors of Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas have directed the adjutants general of their National Guards to authorize Guardsmen to be armed in their states.

Before the attack in Chattanooga, congressional Armed Services Committee Chairmen Sen. John McCain and Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) had been planning to include legislation in the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act to clarify an Army post commander’s authority to allow the carrying of personal firearms for protection. Now, numerous other senators and representatives have stated their support for legislation to allow military personnel to be armed for protection of themselves and their fellow troops here at home.

The outpouring of support for allowing military personnel to protect themselves is more than justified by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which included an attack upon the Pentagon, and events related to other military facilities thereafter.  In 2009, a terrorist killed 12 military personnel and one civilian, and wounded 30 others on Fort Hood, Texas. That same year, another attack occurred upon a military recruiting office in Little Rock, Arkansas, resulting in the death of one soldier and the wounding of another. Over the next two years, law enforcement authorities foiled planned attacks upon military facilities in Baltimore and Seattle. In 2013, 12 people were killed and four were wounded in an attack upon the Washington, D.C., Navy Yard. And only eight months ago, the FBI issued a warning that ISIS was recruiting extremists to attack our military personnel here at home.

Military personnel are effectively prohibited from carrying personal firearms for protection by a Department of Defense Directive of 2011, which states:

Arming DoD personnel with firearms shall be limited and controlled. Qualified personnel shall be armed when required for assigned duties and there is reasonable expectation that DoD installations, property, or personnel lives or DoD assets will be jeopardized if personnel are not armed…

That directive traces back to another Directive from the early 1990s, which contains similar language.

EDITORS NOTE: We encourage readers to contact their U.S. senators and representatives, to voice their strong support for legislation to allow our military personnel to carry firearms for their protection.

Florida to Lose 79,459 Jobs Due to Defense Cuts

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The Jacksonville Business Journal reports that Florida stands to lose 79,459 jobs and $4.1 billion in labor income by the end of fiscal 2013 if $1.2 trillion in federal defense cuts take place in January as planned.  A report conducted by George Mason University by economist Stephen Fuller says Florida would suffer the sixth most job losses of all the states. The report measures the impact of both defense and nondefense employment reductions at federal agencies and their contractors, as well as at businesses that count them as customers. A little more than half of Florida’s lost jobs in the next fiscal year — 41,905 — would result from Department of Defense cuts, and the rest would stem from reductions at civilian agencies. During that period, Florida would also see gross state product losses of $8 billion. To read more click here. The George Mason University report concludes – The magnitude of economic impacts resulting from the Budget Control Act of 2011 over the combined FY 2012-FY 2013 period have been shown to be large and their impact on the U.S. economy to be significant:

• Combined DOD and non-DOD agency spending reductions totaling $115.7 billion in FY 2013 would reduce the 2013 U.S. GDP by $215.0 billion.

• These spending reductions would result in the loss of 746,222 direct jobs including cutbacks in the federal workforce totaling 277,263 and decreases in the federal contractor workforce totaling 468,959 jobs, thus affecting all sectors of the national economy.

• The loss of these 746,222 direct jobs and 432,978 jobs of suppliers and vendors (indirect jobs) dependent on the prime contractors would reduce total labor income in the U.S. by $109.4 billion.

• The loss of this labor income and the resultant impacts of reduced consumer spending in the economy would generate an additional loss of 958,508 jobs dependent on the spending and re-spending of payroll dollars associated with the direct and indirect jobs lost as a result of BCA.

• This loss of $215.0 billion in GDP and 2.14 million jobs in 2013 would erase two-thirds of the GDP gains projected for the year and raise the national unemployment rate by 1.5 percentage points by the end of 2013.

• These economic impacts would affect every state with their respective vulnerabilities to projected DOD and non-DOD spending reductions being determined by their agency mix and relative magnitudes of federal payroll and procurement. Based on current patterns of federal spending by state, ten states account for more than half of total federal payroll and procurement outlays. This significant concentration of federal spending represents a major threat to these states’ economies in 2013. While other states may appear less vulnerable to federal spending reductions, these may also suffer significant impacts dues to their smaller sizes or more specialized economic structures.

Florida is has twenty-one military installations, and is home to U.S. Central Command at MacDill AFB in Tampa.