Vaccine Holdouts at Key Military Bases Pose Staffing Dilemma
In late October, Phil Teuscher’s supervisor showed up at his office at the Navy’s top weapons testing base to let him know his name was on a list of thousands of base personnel who had failed to acknowledge receipt of the COVID-19 vaccine requirement.
In August, all branches of the U.S. military gave its service members and civilian employees an ultimatum: Get the vaccine or face being fired. At the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in California, the remote base where Teuscher has worked for 20 years, the first part of the mandate required all personnel to officially acknowledge receipt of the directive. The next step was a signed statement saying whether they have received a shot.
But Teuscher, 58, and many others who work for the Navy on and around the base have refused to comply with either directive. Using an online messaging app, Teuscher started connecting with other like-minded China Lake workers pushing back against the requirement. The group quickly grew to more than 300 participants, all deeply concerned about receiving the vaccine or outright refusing it. Each day at lunchtime, dozens of workers gather outside the base to protest the mandate.
Some employees connected to the base, all of whom require security clearances to work there, are pointing to underlying health problems they believe the vaccine could exacerbate while others cite religious exemptions. Teuscher, a production manager for a highly sophisticated missile program at the base’s Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, or NAWCWD, is not making either claim. Instead, he’s choosing to fight the legality of the mandate on principle. . .
But the Navy faces its own dilemma as the deadlines loom. With roughly 10% of the base’s highly educated and trained personnel refusing the shot, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to maintain all the classified weapons and their testing operations in top working order if all resisters are fired. (Read more from “Vaccine Holdouts at Key Military Bases Pose Staffing Dilemma” HERE)
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/usnavy/40324532824
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