A couple of months ago SecDef cosplayer Pete Hegseth took time off from his drinking, workouts and speechifying about ‘warrioring’ to sign a directive cancelling mandatory flu vaccines for our troops. We’ve passed the major flu season but the disease is still out there. Most on active duty got vaccinated last fall, but newbies entering training have had a choice and Hegseth’s following dumbass advice from his pal RFK Jr. suddenly isn’t working out so well. There’s a large outbreak at Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio, Texas.
Lackland is no ordinary AFB. In addition to housing various operational squadrons it also does a lot of training. Officers trying to earn Air Force Wings. Other training for those who pass that test to learn to fly various aircraft. Other training too and not just for Zoomies. (Air Force types) For example training for Military Police for all branches is conducted there. You get the idea. And of course it’s the training base for all new Air Force recruits. As this article from The Independent tells us Petey Boy’s decision to cancel mandatory flu vaccination is resulting in some serious consequences:
Less than two months after Hegseth’s air ‘were told they could avoid having to deal with that hurtful flu shot needle an outbreak is tearing through Lackland. So far the 160 cases reported are confined to the recruit training squadron. However I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn it’s spread well beyond that area. Those recruits live in close proximity to be sure but recruit training in every branch includes spending time in classrooms. And chow halls. In other words they interact with more than each other and those directly conducting their training. For now the party-line from the DOD is that the outbreak is ‘contained’:
“Over the last three weeks, the 37th Training Wing, in close coordination with the 59th Medical Wing, has been managing a localized influenza outbreak among trainees at Basic Military Training,” an Air Force spokesperson told The Independent in a statement. “Medical professionals and Public Health officials have implemented mitigation measures to isolate and treat symptomatic trainees to reduce further exposure and continue to monitor the situation.”
“Once they are cleared by medical professionals they will return to training,” the official added.
Flu as you know can run from a relative handful of days feeling awful to a week (or more) of feeling incapacitated with what humorist Dave Barry described as “Martian Death Flu.” When I was in the process of becoming a Marine an illness or injury that prevented someone from taking part in training for as little as five or six days was enough to get them dropped. They’d be reassigned to the barracks with new arrivals until they could get plugged into a new platoon (or, in the Air Force ‘squadron’) at a similar point in their own training. Speaking for myself and having served with someone it happened to that flat out sucks.
It gets worse however. In the few weeks described above some 160 cases have been involved and the linked article confirms what I first heard on MS NOW about this story earlier today. At least two were hospitalized and one has died. Of course the DOD is going out of its way to say the cause of death is ‘undetermined.’ Sure guys. Frankly I’m surprised they release any information at all about a death possibly (more like LIKELY) linked to the outbreak but they did:
On Wednesday, the 37th Training Wing announced that Keon McDaniel, a basic military trainee from the 737th Training Support Squadron, died earlier in the week after experiencing a “medical emergency” and being taken to Brooke Army Medical Center.
“The cause of the medical emergency is currently under investigation, and a comprehensive medical review is being conducted to determine the facts,” the unit said in a statement.
Now 160 cases might give you pause but is it really something that translates into military preparedness? In a word yes. Thousands of troops pass in and out of Lackland every day. Flu vaccines lose effectiveness over time and as I noted most of those vaccinated last fall are a bit more at risk at this point on the calendar. I’ve also covered how while ostensible the outbreak is contained to a specific group in a relatively small portion of a very large base each day they are interacting with people who carry that fairly easily transmittable virus all over the place. Although not noted in the article I heard the pundit on TV say since the mandatory flu vaccination policy was lifted the percentage of vaxxed new troops has dropped to only FORTY PERCENT!
All because Hegseth is a dumbass. As a Marine who got stuck with countless needles/vaccinations both in training and afterwards a flu shot is just another shot. You don’t have to be Marine crazy tough to ‘take it’ and minutes later forget about it. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been stuck with a needle before, during and after my time on active duty and with few exceptions found myself started to see the freaking ban aid when I took my shirt off that night!
If you read the linked article (you should) you can see Hegseth’s statements when deep-sixing mandatory flu vaccines. Complete and utter bullshit about them being mandated being overly broad, totally unnecessary and so on. Sure Pete. Ten bucks says YOU got yours! But ‘owing the libs’ and ‘sciency types like doctors with actual expertise in the area so your pal RFK will pick up some bar tabs for you is what matters! Oh, and he’s got his press flacks pushing back on questions about the wisdom of cancelling vaccines:
“The decisions were based upon thorough risk assessments and are designed to maximize operational readiness, lethality, and force generation, while safeguarding at-risk populations,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement to The Independent.
Bullshit. This is nothing more than a naked attempt to appeal to MAGA goobers harboring ‘who is the damn gub-mint to tell folks they have to get something – even if it’s good for them?’ asshats. Don’t be surprised if we see more of this. And because of how quickly and how far someone can travel to a new duty destination before showing symptoms there are outbreaks in some awfully inconvenient places. Ships in the Persian Gulf for example. Think back to Covid when ships had to refrain from docking due to outbreaks on board! Hegseth claimed freeing ‘his’ ‘warriors’ from flu vaccines would increase readiness and war fighting capability.
Again I call bullshit and unlike Petey BOY I’ve got receipts for my claim!
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::waiting for another pandemic to hit the USA::