Last summer we visited Valley Forge on our ‘granddaughter trip’ to Pennsylvania. They have a great visitor center and one of the tidbits of information that I was reminded of was General George Washington’s order that all troops in the Continental army be vaccinated for smallpox. I have also been researching civil war diaries of Union soldiers to gain insight into what my family members experienced in the army during the Civil War. Here too, soldiers were required to get vaccinated. Both Washington and Lincoln supported mandatory vaccinations of soldiers. Disease was rampant in the army during the wars with half of soldier deaths caused by illness and disease of some type.

Civil War diaries tell of half of entire regiments being hospitalized due to illnesses. There was always some resistance to vaccinations and one Union soldier recorded that he saw too many die that could have been prevented and could not understand why others resisted “the poke” calling it “superstition.”

That was 160 years ago. My thought was that not much has changed. I do not believe that the South had a mandatory vaccination of troops which contributed to their manpower deficit. You cannot fight or win a war with sick soldiers.

You cannot have ranks depleted by disease. The U.S. army lost thousands of troops to the influenza epidemic during WWI and would have ordered vaccinations if one had been available. Today, our soldiers are highly specialized and trained to do specific jobs. While in the Continental or Union armies, a sick soldier could be quickly replaced by another, that is not so easy today.

By its description, individuals that make up an army act in concentrated and often confined groups, and cannot be isolated as can the general public and do their jobs. Soldiers tend to have to operate in close proximity to one another, which is conducive to spreading communicable disease. The USS Theodore Roosevelt was taken out of action because of an on-board epidemic of COVID. If our military were to be infected by an epidemic, our national defense readiness would be quickly degraded putting our nation’s security at risk. That is the primary reason why the Pentagon ordered our troops to be vaccinated for COVID.

The U.S. military has a long history, going back to the Continental army and the founder of our nation, for adoption of preventive vaccination. The military attempts to practice progressive disease prevention with an aggressive vaccination program for the troops. If you go online, you can get the list of all the vaccinations that are required that soldiers be given and frankly they become a pin cushion for all of the pokes that they receive. I remember in the movie Pearl Harbor when Ben Afflack gets the needle and passes out. I am sure that anyone who is a veteran understands the process better than I. Thank you for your service.

According to Newsweek, “The DoD already administers 17 different vaccines to service members–outlined in the “Joint Regulation on Immunization and Chemoprophylaxis for the Prevention of Infectious Diseases.”

These are the mandatory vaccinations that all service members are required to receive before initial entry or basic training:

Service members can request to opt out of a mandatory vaccination on health, administrative or religious grounds. These exemptions can be temporary or permanent.”

The U.S. military has been struggling to maintain its enlistment levels, falling short of needed quotas. How many have opted out using the COVID vaccine excuse? 3,400 as of last April. By branch, troops leaving represented just under 1% of Marines, .07% of the Army, .04% of the Air Force, just .02% of the Navy and none from the Space Force. By far the vast majority were given favorable discharges allowing them to return if they consent to the vaccine. Close to 99% of U.S. military personnel have been vaccinated. I think that it would be hard to argue that COVID vaccine has been an impediment to service. The U.S. military is still one of the least politicized institutions that we have to date. The decision by the Pentagon to require the COVID vaccine is fully consistent with long time military medical doctrine and practice with the express purpose of maintaining military readiness. I would expect that the Pentagon would look at the mess that China is in right now with lack of vaccinations and use of inferior vaccines, seeing it as a military advantage for the U.S.

Want-to-be House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said that the first thing that the new GOP house would do is eliminate the military COVID vaccine mandate via Pentagon funding authorization. This was included in the defense funding bill that was passed by Congress that the president will have to sign. While no rejection of other vaccines has been cited, they take exception to the COVID vaccine, singling it out. For some reason, puzzling to me, this one has become overtly political. I see dropping the COVID vaccine mandate for the military as circumventing medical and national security designs, potentially eliminating a military advantage that the Pentagon has implemented over its adversaries since its historical inception. I would much prefer that the People’s Liberation Army be the unvaccinated Confederates and ours be the Union. At one time this COVID vaccine mandate was more important than it should be now that the current force was vaccinated and the general public has a significant degree of immunity. Our military has a specific reason to be vaccinated. Our public can make its own choices. Our country’s vaccine adoption is a lot of the reason why our economic performance is exceeding China’s.

David Kruse is author and producer of The CommStock Report, an ag commentary and market analysis available daily by radio and by subscription on DTN/FarmDayta and the Internet.