The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) rescinded the DOD’s mandatory Covid 19 vaccine policy, providing an opportunity to refocus the military on its primary responsibilities and objectives. With recruitment goals at a 50-year low and desperate hopes that the “Top Gun” sequel would regenerate the desire to serve, it serves no purpose to compound the crisis by punishing those who in good faith refused to receive an experimental vaccine.

From the outset the vaccine program has been controversial and fraught with ambiguity. Members of the armed services, who are young and healthy, bear little risk of severe disease, and the vaccine does not protect them against infection or transmission. The normal 10-year safety trial period for gene therapy products was condensed to months, and soon the mRNA vaccine garnered a higher incidence of adverse side effects than all other vaccines combined since 1990.