President Joe Biden said the pandemic is over. The state of Florida is taking him at his word.
On Monday, the commander of the Florida National Guard said vaccination status will not impede or affect his willingness to call up the troops he needs to help the state deal with Hurricane Ian, according to the conservative website Florida Voice.
Appearing with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday at a press conference about the storm, Maj. General James Eifert noted, “The vaccine mandate does not impact our ability to bring people in on state active duty.”
“So, regardless of what DoD [the Defense Department] may end up doing with those people, which is still undetermined, we will be activating all of those people in support of the citizens of Florida.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced last year that all U.S. troops must receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
Several thousand troops who refused were booted out of the military. In July, the Army announced that 40,000 National Guardsmen nationwide would not receive pay or benefits unless they received the shots.
The Free Press posted last week that as many as 10,000 await to be discharged for declining the jab.
DeSantis has been critical of the Biden administration for forcing the shots on troops, calling it wrong to cost people their jobs when the shots have not prevented the spread of COVID.
GOP lawmakers from Florida have also denounced the Pentagon for his rigid stance.
U.S. Reps. Matt Gaetz, Mike Waltz, Greg Steube, Scott Franklin, and Bill Posey have all joined other Republican leaders in demanding that President Joe Biden pull the plug on the mandate.
Earlier this month, Waltz, the first Green Beret elected to Congress, and Franklin joined other lawmakers in sending Austin a letter that cited the National Guard specifically and argued that the mandate was hurting recruiting and retention of troops.
“Our military has been crippled by the restrictive COVID-19 policies that the Department of Defense under the Biden Administration have implemented,” the letter said.
An earlier letter from Steube and Posey, among other GOP lawmakers, told Austin that the Pentagon’s mandate “goes against the principles of freedom and individual liberty that we hold dear.”