Several hundred elite Navy SEALs are in danger of being blocked from deploying with their special operator teams by the Pentagon after failing to get a mandatory COVID vaccine, according to a lawyer and pastor counseling them, as reported by John Solomon, CEO and editor in chief at Just the News.
The number involved in the dispute with the Pentagon amounts to as many as a quarter or more of all active duty SEALs, a loss that could impact military readiness since SEAL teams play an outsized role in modern military operations, their advocates told Just the News. Some SEALS were given a deadline this week for the vaccine and have sought a religious exemption.
John Solomon at Just the News reported:
“My clients include several Navy SEALs who are a small part of a large group of SEALs and other military members who are being asked to choose between their faith and their ability to serve our nation,” said R. Davis Younts, a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force reserves and a JAG lawyer who is representing several of the special operators as a private lawyer. “They have been told that if they seek a religious accommodation, they likely will no longer be able to serve our country as Navy SEALs and been given an arbitrary deadline to comply with the vaccine mandate.
“My clients need time, and we are seeking at least a 90-day extension to vaccine mandate compliance deadline they have been given.”
Younts said the Pentagon has put its threat in writing that unvaccinated SEALs, including those who get a religious exemption or already have natural immunity, will be forbidden from deploying with their teams, all but ending their special operator careers. Some were given a deadline of this week, he said. Continued Below
Federal health regulators say the vaccine is safe for most Americans, while acknowledging some rare but serious adverse events, such as sudden cardiac disease for younger adults.
It reportedly takes up to $500,000 and a year or more to fully train Navy SEALs, among the most elite and celebrated of the military’s special forces. SEALs shouldered a disproportionately heavy load during the war on terror the last two decades, with teams often deploying multiple times to war zones, including black-operations Team Six, which killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.
Retired United States Army lieutenant General Michael Flynn reacted Monday in a statement on Telegram, urging Navy SEALS to “stand your ground for your faith as you have stood your ground for our nation,” adding, “The nation stands with you.”
Flynn issued the following statement:
I understand this would gut the US Navy SEAL community. An incredibly powerful and vitally necessary national security capability all due to the incompetence and deceit of the Biden administration!
“They have been told that if they seek a religious accommodation, they likely will no longer be able to serve our country as Navy SEALs and been given an arbitrary deadline to comply with the vaccine mandate.”
I guess USN SEALs cannot be religious…spend time with them and you’ll understand in a nano-second how powerful their faith in God truly is. Stand your ground for your faith as you have stood your ground for our nation. God bless these men who dare to risk it all for our freedoms. The nation stands with you.
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Eric Greitens, a retired Navy SEAL and the former Missouri governor now running for U.S. Senate, issued a statement Monday on Twitter, saying in part, “This is also wrong at human level.”
“This is wrong for national security,” Greitens said in a statement on Twitter Monday. “The only people who will benefit from destroying the combat capacity of Naval Special Operations are the Taliban, Russia, China and other adversaries around the world. This is also wrong at human level.”
This is wrong for national security.
The only people who will benefit from destroying the combat capacity of Naval Special Operations are the Taliban, Russia, China and other adversaries around the world.
This is also wrong at human level. https://t.co/TveflBhUxJ
— Eric Greitens (@EricGreitens) September 21, 2021
It is clear their out-of-control command is more concerned with political correctness than lethality, and thus is willing to squander national security and personal careers.
— Eric Greitens (@EricGreitens) September 21, 2021
