July 5, 2022 - Epoch Times
14:54
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| Good evening, and right before we dive into the main story, I wanted to quickly mention that since today is the 4th of July, we are running a special for anyone wanting to try Epic TV, our awesome no-censorship video platform where I actually publish two exclusive episodes of Facts Matter every single week, episodes that you cannot find here on YouTube. | |
| So if you'd like to check it out, the special July 4th link will be right there at the very top of the description box. | |
| And now, let's dive into the main topic, which has to do with this right here, the U.S. National Guard. | |
| Or more specifically, the fact that the U.S. National Guard is about to get a lot smaller. | |
| Because you see, according to the most recent estimates, approximately 40,000 National Guard troops are currently facing the prospect of getting discharged from the military due to the vaccine mandate. | |
| Specifically, four days ago, which was Thursday, June the 30th, that was the deadline for National Guard troops across the entire country to be either fully vaccinated or to face the prospect of getting discharged from service. | |
| And according to the data from the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 40,000 National Guard soldiers across the entire nation have not gotten the vaccine. | |
| And for reference... | |
| That number represents roughly 13% of the entire force. | |
| And in terms of what this looks like across the entire country, up on your screen is the amalgamated data from the U.S. Census Bureau that was put together by the Associated Press. | |
| And as you can see, there are six states whose National Guard troops stand to be cut by over 20%. | |
| Those states are, for your reference, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Missouri, as well as Mississippi. | |
| However, when you go further down the list, you'll see that there are another 43 states which are facing the prospect of losing at least 10% of their soldiers. | |
| In total, if you do the math and add it all up, the country as a whole is facing the prospect of losing at least 40,000 soldiers. | |
| Which is a significant number. | |
| In fact, during a recent interview, Lieutenant General John Jensen, who is the director of the Army National Guard, he said that if the current numbers hold, there are serious concerns about the impact that this mass exodus will have on guard readiness. | |
| Here's in fact what he said during a recent interview with the Associated Press. | |
| Quote, When you're looking at 40,000 soldiers that potentially are in that unvaccinated category, absolutely. | |
| There's readiness implications on that and concerns associated with that. | |
| That's a significant chunk. | |
| We're going to give every soldier every opportunity to get vaccinated and continue their military career. | |
| However, given the fact that the vast majority, something like 95% of all religious exemption requests have been denied, well, supporting them through their process can only go so far. | |
| Because the official position of the Pentagon, as of July 1st, is that unvaccinated members of the National Guard will no longer be receiving payment from the federal government when they are activated for federal duties, when they have their monthly drill weekends, nor when they have their two-week annual training period. | |
| Essentially, what that means is that U.S. National Guard troops who are unvaccinated will no longer be sent out on federal duties, nor will they be paid for any of their training. | |
| And very likely, according to statements from the U.S. Department of Defense, they will soon be discharged from the service altogether. | |
| However, it's worth highlighting that this type of situation is playing itself out not only in the U.S. National Guard, but also across all other branches of the military as well. | |
| And along that line, I recently had the opportunity to speak with 1st Lieutenant John Bowes, Who comes from a family of Air Force pilots, and he was himself an Air Force F-16 fighter pilot in training. | |
| However, because of his deeply held religious beliefs, Lieutenant Bose refused to take the COVID vaccine. | |
| And instead, he submitted a religious accommodation request to the U.S. Air Force. | |
| Now, of course, his request was denied, just like the request of about 98% of U.S. service members who tried to get a religious exemption. | |
| And the implications that this will have for the country as a whole are rather stark. | |
| Here's, in fact, what Lieutenant Bose told us during our interview. | |
| But I've spent my entire life dreaming of being a fighter pilot. | |
| I went to the United States Air Force Academy and graduated as a distinguished graduate in 2019. | |
| And then went on to pilot training with NATO forces, actually, to learn to fly the T-6 and the T-38, which are training aircraft, the T-38, which is a supersonic fighter jet trainer. | |
| After that, I moved on to the F-16 training course, where I was placed on administrative hold from flying as a direct consequence of filing for religious accommodations. | |
| That essentially means that Because I follow the religious accommodation, which is my constitutional and statutory right, I was removed from training as a direct consequence of that. | |
| So that's kind of where I stand now. | |
| My religious accommodation has been denied and I've received formal punishment because I remain unvaccinated and I've been told I will be discharged, which is really truly a shame because I have spent my entire life dreaming of being a fighter pilot. | |
| Both my parents were pilots in the Air Force and I remember from just a very young age waking up in the morning and hearing the sound of freedom as jets take off and spending time with pilots. | |
| In the squadron with my father, and so this has been my obsession and my dream, and I've strived for it my entire life, and so it's really a shame that I have to put that all on the line over my religious beliefs, and my oath as an officer to the Constitution of the United States. | |
| So what is your status now? | |
| Because I know the deadline is looming within the U.S. Air Force for people to actually begin to get discharged from the military. | |
| What type of status are you currently in? | |
| Is it that you can do training, but you can have some kind of other job in the military that So right now, like I said, I've had my religious accommodation fully denied, and I've received formal punishment and been told that I will be discharged. | |
| I haven't actually started the discharge process, but essentially right now where I exist is I'm doing a job to remain productive. | |
| And honestly, you know, I want to support my squadron and help out my brothers and sisters. | |
| I don't want to sit by on the sidelines. | |
| So I'm doing what I can to be productive and helpful within my unit while I essentially wait to be removed from the military. | |
| That's what I'm really speaking out about is there are so many service members where it's coming up on the point where it's almost too late. | |
| And we need to do something about this right now because our national security is in jeopardy. | |
| It is a national security crisis, and I'm not going to underplay it. | |
| It's true. | |
| It really is. | |
| There's tens of thousands of service members. | |
| We stand to lose in a time when our military can't even retain service members or recruit already. | |
| That's something I definitely want to touch upon because I know that within the National Guard, the latest numbers I saw were that approximately 40,000 National Guard members will get kicked out of the military once the different vaccine mandates go into effect. | |
| National Guard's a little different because they have, you know, they go state by state. | |
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| Then also, there was an interesting story of a Navy warship that couldn't deploy because the commander was unvaccinated. | |
| And I know within the U.S. Air Force, there was already a pilot shortage, but I can only imagine that this will exacerbate the problem. | |
| Can you talk a bit more about that? | |
| How will so many service members getting kicked out of the military affect military readiness? | |
| Yeah, that's a great question. | |
| I think that's really the crux of the situation here, is regardless of how you feel about the vaccine or religious beliefs or anything else like that, These service members are convicted and they will get kicked out. | |
| And so we need to look at this from a national security perspective more than we need to look at it from anything else. | |
| You know, the DOD's own numbers, as of April of 2020, we lost 10,000 service members in a single month, which is the most in 10 years that we've lost in a single month. | |
| 10,000 service members in one month. | |
| We are hemorrhaging people. | |
| On top of that, the United States Air Force reported their lowest recruiting number since 1999 this year. | |
| And the Navy is now Not passing legislation, but passing policy to prevent members from being discharged early. | |
| And so it's a pretty clear picture here that we are really struggling to keep up with the demands for national security that we already have. | |
| And so when we look at these tens of thousands of service members who could stand to get discharged, 45,000 in the Army National Guard alone, that is a major, major issue in a time when tensions with Russia and Ukraine and Iran and China are escalating every day. | |
| And I think that's important for the American people to understand. | |
| You know, they pay for our national security, and so they deserve answers. | |
| So prior to the start of the interview, you mentioned that you have a document that shows evidence that the Department of Defense is quite aware of the danger that kicking so many members of the military out due to these vaccine mandates would actually pose to military readiness. | |
| Can you share it with the audience? | |
| Yeah, sure thing. | |
| So there's a couple of different documents that exist out there. | |
| The first one I'll talk about is the Marine Corps Office of Legislative Affairs. | |
| as they responded to a congressional inquiry on the date of the 20th of May. | |
| And they stated that, to date, we don't have concerns for the health of our military occupational specialties or overall readiness. | |
| None of the Marines separated to date have been aviators or special operators. | |
| I think that kind of implies that aviators and special operators being discharged would be an issue for national security. | |
| And so I'm personally aware of, at the time that letter came out, I knew of 12 student pilots at Pensacola who I've been notified of discharge. | |
| I know of two F-35 pilots who have been notified of discharge. | |
| I know of an F-18 pilot who's been notified of discharge. | |
| And I know of a Cobra gunship pilot who's been notified of discharge. | |
| And so to say this, that we don't expect any issues, and then to state what would be an issue, and then not include the fact that many of these service members are indeed being discharged, is strange to say, and it's confusing. | |
| And so I'll jump over to the Navy. | |
| This came out on the, let's see, the 20th of June. | |
| They released a NAV admin, which is the policy directive, that said that The original draft said, due to the uncertainty regarding the COVID-19 pandemic vaccination losses and the recruiting environment where competition for talent is especially tough, the Navy is opening the aperture for additional personnel policy levers to retain sailors. | |
| That memo was then changed to have that statement removed from it. | |
| So the Department of Defense, I think, is recognizing the fact that this is indeed an issue, and yet they're trying, in essence, to cover it up. | |
| And I think that's really just the facts, is that they're covering this up. | |
| They recognize it, and they're changing the narrative on a daily basis. | |
| And so we're aware of this, and I think people are becoming more and more aware, but it needs to stick, is really what needs to happen. | |
| Yeah, and especially within the U.S. Air Force, pilot designation, the pilot job is, I imagine, a very specialized job. | |
| Not many people can do it, and even for the people that do do it, there's a lot of training that goes into it. | |
| And so, as I mentioned earlier, right now there have been 9,500 requests for religious accommodation that have been denied. | |
| Do you know out of those 9,500 requests, how many of those people are actually pilots? | |
| How many pilots are we expected to lose when these mandates go into effect? | |
| Well, I can't give you any exact numbers on the Air Force specifically, but across the Department of Defense, I'm personally aware of more than 700 pilots who are actively unvaccinated. | |
| And of those 700 pilots, a survey was conducted of 357 of them to do exactly that, which is quantify the national security implications of losing these highly trained individuals. | |
| These 357 pilots alone, which account for only half, and there's probably more pilots out there, are worth $7.8 billion in taxpayer funds. | |
| On top of that, their average years of service is 14 years, and 69% of them are instructor pilots. | |
| And for those that don't understand that, the implications of that are massive, because In a time when we already have a massive pilot shortage, we're going to then discharge our most experienced aviators who have the capabilities to retrain their replacements and fix this pilot shortage. | |
| So not only are we taking a massive chunk out of our shortage with these 700 pilots, but we're also making it next to impossible to actually dig ourselves out of this decades-long hole we've created in terms of pilot retention and pilot manning. | |
| In 2015, Chief of Staff Goldfein Of the Air Force said that a 1500 pilot shortage was a crisis. | |
| And that shortage has grown to 1650. | |
| And now we're standing to lose half of that crisis. | |
| That is a national security issue that is just completely insane to think about that we would lose that many pilots in our ability to sustain ourselves. | |
| And like I said, I really want to emphasize that these pilots are the experienced ones. | |
| And that's really where the issue lies because we are already losing our experienced pilots in droves to the airlines and just general attrition that we see on a day-to-day basis. | |
| I was speaking to a national guardsman, an air national guardsman recently, and I'll keep his privacy intact. | |
| But he told me that he was having lines out the door of pilots wanting to join his guard unit because they don't want to be part of active duty anymore. | |
| They just simply are tired, and they told him that if they don't get into the guard, which is the part-time only, then they're going to go to the airlines. | |
| And so we're losing them not just to the vaccine in general, but just because of policy. | |
| So what kind of discharge are you? | |
| Now I should mention that that was only a small segment of the entire interview. | |
| In the full interview with Lieutenant Bose, he goes into much greater detail regarding why he refused to take the vaccine, his lawsuit against the Department of Defense, some specific documents that he shared with us regarding how the Pentagon tacitly acknowledged Now, | |
| even though what he said in that interview is his own opinion, as well as his own observations from the ground, well, frankly, just the idea of discussing why his religious beliefs precluded him from getting the shot is not a topic that's welcome here on YouTube. | |
| That's just the reality of the world we live in. | |
| And so if you'd like to check out that interview in its glorious entirety, you can do so over on EpicTV, our awesome no-censorship video platform. | |
| I'll throw a link to the entire interview down into the description box below this video. | |
| And also, just as an aside, as I mentioned earlier, now is a great time to try EpicTV if you've been a bit on the fence, because we are currently running an Independence Day sale. | |
| And so you can celebrate July 4th by declaring your independence from big tech censorship by trying EpicTV. | |
| The link, again, will be right there at the very top of the description box. | |
| Then, until next time, I'm your host Roman from the Epoch Times. |
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