COVID Vaccine: why is it not required for all DOD personnel?

[j4pac]

Just to be clear. Moderna and Pfizer are mrna based and not paused, J&J is based on existing adenovirus technology, and astrezeneca is based on DNA. Different tech. Moderna and Pfizer aren't paused, while J&J is the only one paused and honestly I don't know the status of Astrezenca currently. The blood clot issue arose with Astrezeneca and J&J, the non mrna vaccines. With J&J, we're looking at 6 women with clots, 1 death out of a huge denominator. Risk seems less than OCPs and blood clots which nobody's clamoring to end, and likely much less than COVID and blood clots. The pause for J&J is the right thing, but unless histrionic politicians get involved, im betting science will move forward with the vaccine in a few days after a review with maybe some more strongly worded caution for women on the J&J vaccine monograph.

The contention that we need to wait a year or two, to me seems a bit excessive, as we have substantial data now for 2 of the vaccines and a possibly starting to have more data on the third. Risk/benefit wise, I feel like there's an awful lot of overselling of vaccine risks and underselling COVID risks on this thread. There's also a lot of muddying the waters/equivocation of separate vaccine entities. Intentional or not, it should at least be mentioned.

I don’t think that anyone is arguing that we should wait 1-2 years to vaccinate..only that there should be more efficacy/safety data before forcing the vaccine on people that don’t want it.

The vast majority on this thread is actually on the side of FORCING the vaccine in servicemembers against their will.

It was really just me, the guy about to be banned, and recently HighPriest who doesn’t think that forced vaccinations are a very good idea (at least in this context).

I don’t think that we are playing up the potential vaccine side effects at all. If anything I think that the reporting of these side effects are likely significantly underreported. I’d go so far to say that the average physician is much more likely to report a suspected COVID related event than a COVID vaccine related event...based on bias and not science.

Would you still force women to be vaccinated in the military when there are these evolving concerns out there, not to mention the menstrual risks that are slowly getting out? If you’re not going to force the women in the military to get it...how can you do it toward the men? I think that there are serious issues with equitable care to begin with...there’s just no way one gender will be vaccinated while the other wouldn’t.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[LittleBrother]

I'd agree wholeheartedly except for the fact that a large percentage of vaccine wait-and-see'ers are just ignorant. And at this point, willfully, obstinately so.

They toss out bull**** like "mRNA vaccines change your DNA" and "Fauci has a patent and is getting paid for every dose" and "99.97% of people survive covid without symptoms" and "the PLANdemic is a Chinese bioweapon" and "it was overblown propaganda to STEAL THE ELECTION" ... all things I've heard in just the last few days.

The majority are profoundly anti-intellectual. There's only so many times you can have the conversation with them before you just give up.

You know what's a really bad look? For physicians and scientists to treat these *****s with kid gloves and for the media to give equal time to hear "both sides" as if there's some kind of opinion-based equivalency. We have a moral duty to call out lies and misinformation when they harm public health.

There are some great reasons to delay getting one of the vaccines. Unfortunately most of them have stupid reasons. And while I'm certainly not in favor of forcing immunization upon the public at large, I'm not going to smile and pretend that these pearl clutching handwringing idiots blathering on about conspiracies of CDC collusion with China are behaving rationally.

Sorry, but yall have a major PR problem with large swaths of the country, it existed before the pandemic, but the pandemic certainly made it a lot worse. First, let's not ignore the fact that physicians and intellectuals are often responsible for many bad things, like Eugenics, lobotomies, and the opioid crisis. These "***s" are simply acting on decades of well-deserved mistrust for a fundamentally unaccountable elite society that increasingly lords over every aspect of their lives.

Second, lets look to many of the blatant public health failures of the physician and scientific community just during these lock-downs.

1. The Imperial College study which justified all of this was completely hyperbolic.
2. The medical community has consistently moved the goalpost on just about everything, from the purpose of the lock-downs (flatten the curve vs stop the spread), efficacy of masks (they hurt, no wait they help - we just said they hurt you so that we could buy ours first), to the vaccine itself (get vaccinated! but it might not make a difference! Listen to us but we don't know anything!).
3. Shutdowns were of critical national importance until they weren't, ie George Floyd riots. That wasn't just a political thing - huge swaths of the medical community explicitly showed support for violating the same freaking rules they had been finger wagging about not weeks before.
4. the medical community itself is demonstrably partisan - one needs look no further than the NEJM and the Lancet. It really isn't weird that people think you are partisan hacks when you act like partisan hacks.
5. Almost forgot, we all saw the dancing-nurse tik-tok videos while we were being locked out of our houses of worship, our businesses, while we were being denied the right to see family members, or properly bury our dead. While hundreds of millions of Americans were suffering through the worst of these lockdowns the Medical community went out of it's way to tell us how grateful we should be for its heroic sacrifices. Seriously: "Heroes work here!"??? Do you think that message comes across well to people who've lost their job, home, or business, and would more than gladly risk getting covid (like medical providers) for even a fraction of their pay?

Yeah, these people might not be behaving rationally but there really isn't a lot of that anywhere these days. The medical community has been equally irrational, or if not, selfishly risk-adverse.

More importantly, these people are acting how you would expect them to act if they had no reason to trust you. Many of them are being obstinate simply to get back at the people who've actually seriously harmed them. That lack of trust is ultimately a major problem. You aren't going to earn their trust by telling them to go **** themselves.

The medical community really needs a lot more introspection. It is responsible for ruining plenty of lives this year from the pandemic, and over a generation from things like the opioid crisis. It is largely full of the elite-privileged who - as we have seen here - hardly even make an effort to hide their disdain for the common man. Perhaps people would be more amenable to the vaccine if you hadn't lied to them at every point during the pandemic? COVID wasn't a problem until it was, masks didn't work until they did, shutdowns were important until they weren't, and vaccines were going to save us all until they didn't.

 

[HighPriest]

Yeah, I am on the fence on this one. On one hand, pgg is spot on: 9/10ths of the concerns out there in the general public regarding COVID vaccine side effects are baseless nonsense. But, 1/10 may not be. Again, I personally think it’s safe. I got it. My wife will get it when she can. My parents got it. But I have also seen some weird stuff that may or may not be coincidental come through the door right after vaccination. And what we won’t know for a couple of years is: is that causality or coincidence. Suggestion is a powerful impetus.

So, if we were talking about mandating the flu vaccine during a flu pandemic, that would be an easier call, even if only a little.

For me it’s still more about the reason it might be mandated rather than the side effects. If it’s effecting force projection or if the force is infecting then civilian populous, then something needs to be done.

 

[HighPriest]

Great comments in this thread. I think most of us want the mRNA vaccines to work and to be safe. That said, being cautious with the roll-out and giving the FDA time to verify the safety of the vaccine should be a no-brainer and physicians demanding others be inoculated with an experimental vaccine is a potentially awful look for the medical profession. Encourage those who want it to take it, but respect others wishes to wait for more data. Thats not anti-intellectual in the slightest.

That said, I do understand service members are not civilians and the rules may be different...

THAT is not anti-intellectualism. Suggesting the vaccine makes you some kind of mutant, or that it’s a government scam (that somehow effects everyone in every other country too). That’s to what I was referring with anti-intellectualism.

 

[HighPriest]

You know what's a really bad look? For physicians and scientists to treat these *****s with kid gloves and for the media to give equal time to hear "both sides" as if there's some kind of opinion-based equivalency. We have a moral duty to call out lies and misinformation when they harm public health.

This is the American ***king dilemma right here. The idea that every opinion is equally valid.

Every educated/logical opinion is valid, and if you don’t have one then it is valid to be educated by someone who does. But we shouldn’t put society on hold to make you feel good about your ignorance.

I am, again, referring to the truly ridiculous ideas out there about vaccines (or anything else) and not the reasonable “we really don’t have all the data yet” ideas.

Btw, I kind of want to frame that post @pgg.

 

[ClipArtBananas]

Sorry, but yall have a major PR problem with large swaths of the country, it existed before the pandemic, but the pandemic certainly made it a lot worse. First, let's not ignore the fact that physicians and intellectuals are often responsible for many bad things, like Eugenics, lobotomies, and the opioid crisis. These "***s" are simply acting on decades of well-deserved mistrust for a fundamentally unaccountable elite society that increasingly lords over every aspect of their lives.

Second, lets look to many of the blatant public health failures of the physician and scientific community just during these lock-downs.

1. The Imperial College study which justified all of this was completely hyperbolic.
2. The medical community has consistently moved the goalpost on just about everything, from the purpose of the lock-downs (flatten the curve vs stop the spread), efficacy of masks (they hurt, no wait they help - we just said they hurt you so that we could buy ours first), to the vaccine itself (get vaccinated! but it might not make a difference! Listen to us but we don't know anything!).
3. Shutdowns were of critical national importance until they weren't, ie George Floyd riots. That wasn't just a political thing - huge swaths of the medical community explicitly showed support for violating the same freaking rules they had been finger wagging about not weeks before.
4. the medical community itself is demonstrably partisan - one needs look no further than the NEJM and the Lancet. It really isn't weird that people think you are partisan hacks when you act like partisan hacks.
5. Almost forgot, we all saw the dancing-nurse tik-tok videos while we were being locked out of our houses of worship, our businesses, while we were being denied the right to see family members, or properly bury our dead. While hundreds of millions of Americans were suffering through the worst of these lockdowns the Medical community went out of it's way to tell us how grateful we should be for its heroic sacrifices. Seriously: "Heroes work here!"??? Do you think that message comes across well to people who've lost their job, home, or business, and would more than gladly risk getting covid (like medical providers) for even a fraction of their pay?

Yeah, these people might not be behaving rationally but there really isn't a lot of that anywhere these days. The medical community has been equally irrational, or if not, selfishly risk-adverse.

More importantly, these people are acting how you would expect them to act if they had no reason to trust you. Many of them are being obstinate simply to get back at the people who've actually seriously harmed them. That lack of trust is ultimately a major problem. You aren't going to earn their trust by telling them to go **** themselves.

The medical community really needs a lot more introspection. It is responsible for ruining plenty of lives this year from the pandemic, and over a generation from things like the opioid crisis. It is largely full of the elite-privileged who - as we have seen here - hardly even make an effort to hide their disdain for the common man. Perhaps people would be more amenable to the vaccine if you hadn't lied to them at every point during the pandemic? COVID wasn't a problem until it was, masks didn't work until they did, shutdowns were important until they weren't, and vaccines were going to save us all until they didn't.

Ok, Tucker.

 

[usma05]

Sorry, but yall have a major PR problem with large swaths of the country, it existed before the pandemic, but the pandemic certainly made it a lot worse. First, let's not ignore the fact that physicians and intellectuals are often responsible for many bad things, like Eugenics, lobotomies, and the opioid crisis. These "***s" are simply acting on decades of well-deserved mistrust for a fundamentally unaccountable elite society that increasingly lords over every aspect of their lives.

Second, lets look to many of the blatant public health failures of the physician and scientific community just during these lock-downs.

1. The Imperial College study which justified all of this was completely hyperbolic.
2. The medical community has consistently moved the goalpost on just about everything, from the purpose of the lock-downs (flatten the curve vs stop the spread), efficacy of masks (they hurt, no wait they help - we just said they hurt you so that we could buy ours first), to the vaccine itself (get vaccinated! but it might not make a difference! Listen to us but we don't know anything!).
3. Shutdowns were of critical national importance until they weren't, ie George Floyd riots. That wasn't just a political thing - huge swaths of the medical community explicitly showed support for violating the same freaking rules they had been finger wagging about not weeks before.
4. the medical community itself is demonstrably partisan - one needs look no further than the NEJM and the Lancet. It really isn't weird that people think you are partisan hacks when you act like partisan hacks.
5. Almost forgot, we all saw the dancing-nurse tik-tok videos while we were being locked out of our houses of worship, our businesses, while we were being denied the right to see family members, or properly bury our dead. While hundreds of millions of Americans were suffering through the worst of these lockdowns the Medical community went out of it's way to tell us how grateful we should be for its heroic sacrifices. Seriously: "Heroes work here!"??? Do you think that message comes across well to people who've lost their job, home, or business, and would more than gladly risk getting covid (like medical providers) for even a fraction of their pay?

Yeah, these people might not be behaving rationally but there really isn't a lot of that anywhere these days. The medical community has been equally irrational, or if not, selfishly risk-adverse.

More importantly, these people are acting how you would expect them to act if they had no reason to trust you. Many of them are being obstinate simply to get back at the people who've actually seriously harmed them. That lack of trust is ultimately a major problem. You aren't going to earn their trust by telling them to go **** themselves.

The medical community really needs a lot more introspection. It is responsible for ruining plenty of lives this year from the pandemic, and over a generation from things like the opioid crisis. It is largely full of the elite-privileged who - as we have seen here - hardly even make an effort to hide their disdain for the common man. Perhaps people would be more amenable to the vaccine if you hadn't lied to them at every point during the pandemic? COVID wasn't a problem until it was, masks didn't work until they did, shutdowns were important until they weren't, and vaccines were going to save us all until they didn't.

So if we're that bad, why do you want to be part of our community?

 

[LittleBrother]

So if we're that bad, why do you want to be part of our community?

Because my friends and family come from that part of the population I see doctors so easily disparage, and I think they deserve physicians who respect and share their values.

 

[usma05]

Because my friends and family come from that part of the population I see doctors so easily disparage, and I think they deserve physicians who respect and share their values.

I would encourage you to bookmark this discussion and revisit as you progress through your medical education. We all grow and learn as we progress, you just might it need a bit more than others.

 

[j4pac]

Because my friends and family come from that part of the population I see doctors so easily disparage, and I think they deserve physicians who respect and share their values.

Military servicemembers don't always receive great care. In reality...there were moments during my military career that I felt unable to provide the care that they deserved because of the structures in place. I'd try to understand that doctors don't become doctors...especially military doctors...because they don't want to provide excellent care to their patients. That's actually exceptionally rarely, even more so in the military than the civilian sector in my opinion. The problem is rarely the doctor...it's the structure, the bureaucracy, and burn out. But you are right that military servicemembers and their dependents deserve our best.

 

[HighPriest]

Military servicemembers don't always receive great care. In reality...there were moments during my military career that I felt unable to provide the care that they deserved because of the structures in place. I'd try to understand that doctors don't become doctors...especially military doctors...because they don't want to provide excellent care to their patients. That's actually exceptionally rarely, even more so in the military than the civilian sector in my opinion. The problem is rarely the doctor...it's the structure, the bureaucracy, and burn out. But you are right that military servicemembers and their dependents deserve our best.

The most gratifying part of being a military doc was taking care of soldiers. The most frustrating part was not being able to do so because of the bureaucracy.

 

[usma05]

Interesting preprint article from Oxford comparing risk of thrombus (CVT) of vaccines vs COVID. FYSA.

The risk of developing cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) from COVID-19 was "many-fold" higher than from receiving the AstraZeneca/Oxford or the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, researchers have concluded.

A preprint study by the University of Oxford found that from a dataset of over 500,000 COVID patients, CVT would have occurred in 39 per million people.

CVT has been reported to occur in about 5 per million people after a first dose of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine. In over 480,000 people receiving either the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna mRNA vaccines, CVT occurred in 4 per million.



"The researchers said that compared to the mRNA vaccines, the risk of CVT from COVID-19 was about 10 times greater.

Compared to the Oxford vaccine, the risk of CVT from COVID-19 was about 8 times greater."

Vaccines Carry Lower Risk for Rare Blood Clots Than COVID: Study

The risk of developing cerebral venous thrombosis from COVID-19 was "many-fold" higher than from receiving the AstraZeneca/Oxford or the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, researchers have concluded.

www.medscape.com

 

[HighPriest]

Interesting preprint article from Oxford comparing risk of thrombus (CVT) of vaccines vs COVID. FYSA.

The risk of developing cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) from COVID-19 was "many-fold" higher than from receiving the AstraZeneca/Oxford or the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, researchers have concluded.

A preprint study by the University of Oxford found that from a dataset of over 500,000 COVID patients, CVT would have occurred in 39 per million people.

CVT has been reported to occur in about 5 per million people after a first dose of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine. In over 480,000 people receiving either the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna mRNA vaccines, CVT occurred in 4 per million.



"The researchers said that compared to the mRNA vaccines, the risk of CVT from COVID-19 was about 10 times greater.

Compared to the Oxford vaccine, the risk of CVT from COVID-19 was about 8 times greater."

Vaccines Carry Lower Risk for Rare Blood Clots Than COVID: Study

The risk of developing cerebral venous thrombosis from COVID-19 was "many-fold" higher than from receiving the AstraZeneca/Oxford or the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, researchers have concluded.

www.medscape.com

Very interesting. And of course you can’t just compare it to the baseline CVT risk simply because it seems like without treatment, everyone will get COVID (or even with treatment), so you do have to compare it to the disease process. That being said I just read an article that states the baseline rate for cavernous sinus thrombosis is 0.6-1.2/100,000/year. Which is about in line with Pfizer/Moderna if my math is right (but I just did it in my head right now, so don’t hold me to that). But I ain’t no hematologist.

Assuming we’re seeing a trend and not a fluke, the J&J would end up being higher than the baseline rate based upon the tiny data pool they have so far. But maybe not as high as COVID.

 

[GratefulDoc1]

Because my friends and family come from that part of the population I see doctors so easily disparage, and I think they deserve physicians who respect and share their values.

Military servicemembers don't always receive great care. In reality...there were moments during my military career that I felt unable to provide the care that they deserved because of the structures in place. I'd try to understand that doctors don't become doctors...especially military doctors...because they don't want to provide excellent care to their patients. That's actually exceptionally rarely, even more so in the military than the civilian sector in my opinion. The problem is rarely the doctor...it's the structure, the bureaucracy, and burn out. But you are right that military servicemembers and their dependents deserve our best.

The most gratifying part of being a military doc was taking care of soldiers. The most frustrating part was not being able to do so because of the bureaucracy.

Great to see the common ground here.

What the majority of us here aspire to, is to take care of our well-deserving soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, the best way we can, and the best way we know how...

Although we may have differing convictions on some matters...

Most of us also know that usually our biggest barriers to our ability to serve our patients well (in addition to our ability to live happy, fulfilling lives) are excessive bureaucracy, and heavy-handedness among institutions, companies/industries, & organizations, which over-reach their role of service, attempt to quash all dissent, and inch societies ever closer to totalitarianism...fascism...etc

For physicians (and would-be-physicians), our profession has always placed a high premium on the principles of patient autonomy and informed consent (w/some exceptions of course, such as in extreme emergency life-or-death moments)...

Yet , as military members, we also see where implementing certain mandatory requirements has a vital role, for maintaining good order and discipline, and for ensuring the success of the mission.

The keys here, are discernment...and getting the balance right. This very often is a work in progress.

 

[d2305]

The J&J vaccine can cause clots in the cavernous sinus or thereabouts with thrombocytopenia. Sounds similar to DIC.

 

[DrMetal]

What a dumb military we are, that we prohibit sailors/soldiers (who refused the vaccine) from entering the building, thus allowing them to stay home. They can come into the building if they have a negative antigen test, but the command has to supply the test. The member does not have to seek or pay for the test himself. The chain of command is grossly inconvenienced with this task.

What a dumb military we are, that it's taking us 6 to 9 months to separate these members, thus essentially giving them a free paycheck for that time, and giving them an honorable separation at that.

We're so cowardly; we have no sense of discipline.

Fear going to war with China? We should. And if it happens, start learning Chinese.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

What a dumb military we are, that we prohibit sailors/soldiers (who refused the vaccine) from entering the building, thus allowing them to stay home. They can come into the building if they have a negative antigen test, but the command has to supply the test. The member does not have to seek or pay for the test himself. The chain of command is grossly inconvenienced with this task.

What a dumb military we are, that it's taking us 6 to 9 months to separate these members, thus essentially giving them a free paycheck for that time, and giving them an honorable separation at that.

We're so cowardly; we have no sense of discipline.

Fear going to war with China? We should. And if it happens, start learning Chinese.

Members can receive a general discharge. Whether they are or not is a different story. If someone who works at any other other job requiring vaccination for employment refuses to get it, they just get fired or can quit. Not sure why someone should have to be saddled with a lower discharge level that could affect future employment for the rest of their lives just because they are in the military and being dumb about the vaccine.

Also it’s not just the military. A federal judge is preventing the Navy from taking action against 35 Sailors who filed suit because the vaccine violates their religious beliefs (as Christians—which as a Christian, is ****ing ridiculous).

 

[HighPriest]

Not like nuking a city. That’s Christian enough to make the cut.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Not like nuking a city. That’s Christian enough to make the cut.

For real. Persecuting gays, attempting to control women, the death penalty, etc. All fine. But can’t get that pesky Biden vaccine.

 

[DrMetal]

Members can receive a general discharge. Whether they are or not is a different story. If someone who works at any other other job requiring vaccination for employment refuses to get it, they just get fired or can quit. Not sure why someone should have to be saddled with a lower discharge level that could affect future employment for the rest of their lives just because they are in the military and being dumb about the vaccine.

Also it’s not just the military. A federal judge is preventing the Navy from taking action against 35 Sailors who filed suit because the vaccine violates their religious beliefs (as Christians—which as a Christian, is ****ing ridiculous).

I don't care what they're separated under, general, honorable, hell give them a ticker tape parade as they leave. But why is it taking 6 months? And if they require a test to enter a building, why is the command burdened with obtaining that test? The member, who refused a lawful order, should be the one obtaining/paying for that test.

I know the answers to my questions: it's because we've become a very soft, undisciplined military. If you worked at McDonalds and refused the vaccine, you'd be fired and without a paycheck tomorrow.

I just watched an E-4 mouth off to an E-8 about getting the vaccine. What do you think would happen to that E-4 in the Chinese or Russian Navy?!

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I don't care what they're separated under, general, honorable, hell give them a ticker tape parade as they leave. But why is it taking 6 months? And if they require a test to enter a building, why is the command burdened with obtaining that test? The member, who refused a lawful order, should be the one obtaining/paying for that test.

Agree with you on the testing. As to why it’s taking so long, they don’t want to kick people out. Kicking people out hurts manning. And we want people to be vaccinated. Giving people another shot while they are being processed has gotten at least some people to reconsider.

I know the answers to my questions: it's because we've become a very soft, undisciplined military. If you worked at McDonalds and refused the vaccine, you'd be fired and without a paycheck tomorrow.

I mean I guess you could look at it that way. Seems more like they just don’t really want to kick people out if they don’t have to. McDonalds isn’t the military.

My experience in the fleet was that there was the occasional soft person, but overall most people were ready to **** **** up and get **** done when it was time to get **** done.

I just watched an E-4 mouth off to an E-8 about getting the vaccine. What do you think would happen to that E-4 in the Chinese or Russian Navy?!

I don’t know what command you’re at, but if that happened at either of my operational commands, that would have been a really bad day for the E-4.

 

[pgg]

I know the answers to my questions: it's because we've become a very soft, undisciplined military. If you worked at McDonalds and refused the vaccine, you'd be fired and without a paycheck tomorrow.

I just watched an E-4 mouth off to an E-8 about getting the vaccine. What do you think would happen to that E-4 in the Chinese or Russian Navy?!

Meh, I think that's an overreaction.

While we're definitely more sensitive and patient with snowflakey people in uniform than we used to be, I would argue that the actual deficiencies and mishaps we've had in recent years can mostly be laid at the feet of understaffing and undertraining. On the Navy side, look at all the bumper-car games our ships were playing a few years ago. Or the $billion ship that burned to the keel in San Diego. Overworked, undermanned, undertrained.

Firing people for refusing the vaccine isn't going to help that. We can mitigate the vaccine-refuser clownishness by requiring frequent tests. And if war was to break out, most COVID+ servicemembers would be able to gut it out and work, same as if they had the flu or had a case of diarrheal illness from living in the field.

I think the voluntary unvaccinated should be charged leave for any resulting SIQ time, but whatever. I'm not going to get emotionally invested in that argument. People do dumb stuff that results in light duty or SIQ time or surgery then convalescent leave all the time. Young people do dumb stuff more than old people and we've got a lot of young people. Just the way it is.


Also, it doesn't matter what subject an E-4 mouths off about to an E-8 ... 51% of the problem there is the E-8.


And finally - don't worry about Russia or China.

Russia is a kleptocratic petro-state with an economy the size of Italy, crippled by an authoritarian government. If they didn't have nuclear weapons, they'd be utterly irrelevant to anyone who doesn't live in Ukraine or Belarus or some other former USSR satellite slavestate.

China is ****ed for a whole bunch of reasons, ranging from an ongoing demographic catastrophe to a severe case of self-inflicted communist totalitarianism. Their imminent ascendency is grossly overstated. As for the military threat they pose - they're not going to swim to Taiwan.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Meh, I think that's an overreaction.

While we're definitely more sensitive and patient with snowflakey people in uniform than we used to be, I would argue that the actual deficiencies and mishaps we've had in recent years can mostly be laid at the feet of understaffing and undertraining. On the Navy side, look at all the bumper-car games our ships were playing a few years ago. Or the $billion ship that burned to the keel in San Diego. Overworked, undermanned, undertrained.

Firing people for refusing the vaccine isn't going to help that. We can mitigate the vaccine-refuser clownishness by requiring frequent tests. And if war was to break out, most COVID+ servicemembers would be able to gut it out and work, same as if they had the flu or had a case of diarrheal illness from living in the field.

I think the voluntary unvaccinated should be charged leave for any resulting SIQ time, but whatever. I'm not going to get emotionally invested in that argument. People do dumb stuff that results in light duty or SIQ time or surgery then convalescent leave all the time. Young people do dumb stuff more than old people and we've got a lot of young people. Just the way it is.


Also, it doesn't matter what subject an E-4 mouths off about to an E-8 ... 51% of the problem there is the E-8.


And finally - don't worry about Russia or China.

Russia is a kleptocratic petro-state with an economy the size of Italy, crippled by an authoritarian government. If they didn't have nuclear weapons, they'd be utterly irrelevant to anyone who doesn't live in Ukraine or Belarus or some other former USSR satellite slavestate.

China is ****ed for a whole bunch of reasons, ranging from an ongoing demographic catastrophe to a severe case of self-inflicted communist totalitarianism. Their imminent ascendency is grossly overstated. As for the military threat they pose - they're not going to swim to Taiwan.

Yeah also from personal experience in doing some stuff in the South China Sea, their Navy at least is not the all imposing, formidable force people keep trying to make them out to be.

For the ships bumping into each other, even without the undertraining, the overworking and undermanning part would have been enough. You can only get 3-4 hours of sleep per night for so many weeks in a row before you stop being able to effectively function. And that’s not going to end well on a warship.

The level of training is widely variable. My two commands were on complete opposite ends of the spectrum.

 

[DrMetal]

Giving people another shot while they are being processed has gotten at least some people to reconsider.

If you're going to kick people out---for anything adverse: refusal of vaccines, DUIs, sexual harassment---do it swiftly. You know what else would get members to reconsider: a 10-day separation policy, that makes you without employment, without a paycheck, and without medical coverage for you and your family.

If your goal is to entice members to reconsider, then don't threaten to separate at all.

can mostly be laid at the feet of understaffing and undertraining.

That and not allowing anyone to concentrate on their primary jobs by bogging them down with superfluous BS. Somewhere out there, a 24-yo JG who's the navigator on a ship can't concentrate on her navigational duties/training, because she has to mitigate EO complaints, command climate surveys, and now has to hunt down COVID tests for her division!

But leadership is important we say?! Fine: don't be surprised then when ships collide, weapons don't work. Everyone in the military will become a great leader and coordinator of administrative crap, but no one will know how to do their primary job (the MC is a rife with such examples).

 

[pgg]

That and not allowing anyone to concentrate on their primary jobs by bogging them down with superfluous BS. Somewhere out there, a 24-yo JG who's the navigator on a ship can't concentrate on her navigational duties/training, because she has to mitigate EO complaints, command climate surveys, and now has to hunt down COVID tests for her division!

Yep, couldn't agree more.

Hey we just had the CO and XO of the USS Montgomery relieved because of "mishandled sexual harassment complaint" - now of course I don't know the details and maybe they really were egregiously negligent and derelict in dealing with some serious misconduct. But this kind of stuff is a huge part of their workload.

Maybe we really should be taking those complaints out of the chain of command, not just to ensure appropriate investigations and responses, but to offload non-operational duties from overworked servicemembers.

During my FTOS fellow year, I had exactly three contacts with the ROTC unit I was attached to for administrative purposes.
1 - fall PFA
2 - spring PFA
3 - mandatory in-person training on new transgender policy

I had to take a day away from clinical work to go do #3 (the PFAs I did on post-call days).

One of the things I'm looking forward to most in 145 days when I depart is not having to do endless rounds of garbage modules on the internet. Trafficking in persons, incident command system, customer service, counterintelligence, cyber awareness, insider threat awareness, no fear act training, sexual assault prevention, constitution day awareness, voter assistance, records management in the DON, security awareness, uncle sam's opsec, early heart attack care (Seriously?!? I'm required to do an online BLS-lite module?!?), teamstepps annual refresher, environmental management system, ethics training, level 1 antiterrorism training, diversity leadership, employee safety, mandatory controlled unclassified information training, suicide prevention, learning needs assessment, command indoctrination, off-duty employment training, extremism training, palliative care training, prohibition on the use of hemp products, run hide fight active shooter, unauthorized commitments, unauthorized disclosures, SERE 100.1 level A, do no harm, inclusion training, full speed ahead got your 6 whatever that was, leader training to introduce the blended retirement system for the uniformed services

on and on and on

None of these things made me a better doctor or officer. The best that can be said about them, is that by completing them on time I helped turn a square green on some powerpoint. Which was shown to someone who was worried about being held responsible for a subordinate's mistake and was pre-emptively acquiring plausible deniability that the subordinate had been trained.

We sure do a lot of things for the sake of appearance.


.... and despite our serious handicap in the PowerPoint-Gap .... we'd still kick the $*!&*!#@ out of China's Navy, that's how great we are!

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

If you're going to kick people out---for anything adverse: refusal of vaccines, DUIs, sexual harassment---do it swiftly. You know what else would get members to reconsider: a 10-day separation policy, that makes you without employment, without a paycheck, and without medical coverage for you and your family.

If your goal is to entice members to reconsider, then don't threaten to separate at all.

Yeah I mean that’s another way to do it. That’s probably what I would do as I have no tolerance or patience for anyone refusing the vaccine.

That and not allowing anyone to concentrate on their primary jobs by bogging them down with superfluous BS. Somewhere out there, a 24-yo JG who's the navigator on a ship can't concentrate on her navigational duties/training, because she has to mitigate EO complaints, command climate surveys, and now has to hunt down COVID tests for her division!

But leadership is important we say?! Fine: don't be surprised then when ships collide, weapons don't work. Everyone in the military will become a great leader and coordinator of administrative crap, but no one will know how to do their primary job (the MC is a rife with such examples).

Totally agree.

 

[militaryPHYS]

A good friend/mentor always said: “As soon as the Navy stops serving you and your family, stop serving the Navy.” Unfortunately with all of the downhill slide mentioned above I think these days it is a lot easier to say that this isn’t serving me well. I can’t disagree.

BUT, still having a commitment to pay back I can’t reasonably have too much to complain about. I think a lot of softness we see these days are from servicemembers who agreed to pay back a debt and yet feel entitled to complain about the way in which life feels under the debt they self-incurred from a contract or bad lender they failed to investigate fully. I can’t blame people like that for taking a ticket out early when poor leadership decisions offer it up.

We are softer now. It will bite us eventually but I agree that we would still beat the snot out of anyone ready to test their luck.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

We are softer now. It will bite us eventually but I agree that we would still beat the snot out of anyone ready to test their luck.

I agree with this. Overall we are a softer military, but at least the Navy is ready to whoop some ass if necessary. I’m sure the other branches are too.

 

[DrMetal]

I wish I had all of your confidence. I still have faith in the USMC, but the Navy has become the bastard child of the DoD. Covid is demonstrating that nicely. It makes me sad and angry.