What Does the Guard Do with 40,000 Unvaccinated Soldiers? No One Knows

Thursday was the deadline for Army National Guard soldiers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or potentially face separation from the service, with roughly 40,000, or 13% of its force, having yet to be inoculated, according to data from the service component reviewed by Military.com.

The numbers pose a daunting challenge to the Pentagon, which mandated vaccination against COVID-19, as it does to counter more than a dozen other ailments such as hepatitis and the flu. The Army National Guard’s deadline was the latest of any military component, with most other deadlines falling last year.

The Air National Guard, for example, had a Dec. 2, 2021, deadline and saw a vaccination rate of 94% when the deadline passed.

As of June 16, 89% of the Army Reserve was fully vaccinated, compared to 97% of the active-duty Army. So far, at least 923 active-duty troops have been removed from the force for refusing to comply with the mandate.

Neither the Army nor National Guard Bureau has developed a plan on how to handle a huge swath of its force refusing a medical mandate. Some states have a significant portion of its formations unvaccinated, and the idea of removing all of them might be unrealistic.

“It would be difficult to lose that many soldiers,” John Goheen, a spokesperson for the National Guard Association, told Military.com. “This is a challenge. For a lot of people, they just don’t see the pandemic anymore.”

It could be a tough sell to those not yet vaccinated, given that COVID-19 has had its greatest impact on people with other health ailments, including obesity and diabetes.

MORE