Former Killington/Mendon legislator Job Tate is a currently-serving “Seabee” in a U.S. Navy construction unit. A well-regarded former legislator and strong conservative, Tate was asked to comment on the Navy’s recent requirement that all personnel be vaccinated. Here’s his response. – Editor
By Job Tate
I initially avoided getting the vaccine because I wanted to stay at the back of the line for the most vulnerable.
Then I avoided the vaccine because I believe myself to have a healthy immune system and had most likely already had Covid…and believed the statistical health threats, including the anecdotal aches and pains, outweighed my threat from the actual virus.
But the Navy has required me to take almost every vaccine under the sun. When I deployed to Africa I took a daily regimen of anti-malarial pills for weeks before I deployed, every day I was there, and for weeks after I returned.
These pills caused many sailors nausea every morning. Fortunately, I never had that problem.
But I was never excited about taking them.
Military service is a very unique profession – we are trained to sacrifice our lives at a moment’s notice.
Taking the vaccine is a lawful order. Statistically it is proven to be highly effective against a highly contagious disease.
I wish it hadn’t been mandated but I am pleased the DoD is offering servicemembers an honorable discharge if they refuse this order.
Many service members have valid health and religious concerns for not getting a vaccine, and they have ample avenues to address those concerns.
As a died-in-the-wool conservative: For those servicemembers that are refusing the vaccine for political purposes, I have very little sympathy.
We can never become a force that weighs its obedience against our own political ideologies.
“Embrace the suck” or get out.
P.S. – I am diametrically opposed to vaccination mandates in the private sector and the rest of the federal government. My children will get the Covid 19 vax over my dead body and I wouldn’t have gotten vaccinated if it weren’t mandated (had my 2nd dose on Oct 5).
But the apolitical military is a completely different animal, and it should be.
I remember during one of the first few days of boot camp, there was an event where my division marched to medical and we each stood on a hallway on a blue line and walked to different colored lines where sailors on either side of us would shoot 6 shots into each arm from these little pneumatic guns.
I didn’t know then and I don’t know now what were in those shots. I still would have walked down that hallway.
This is really no different in my opinion.
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Categories: Commentary
I thank Mr. Tate for his service. His view that the military routinely requires a host of vaccinations, is right on. (Been there, done that.)
Mr. Tate states, “Statistically it is proven to be highly effective against a highly contagious disease”; yet he would prefer to leave his children vulnerable to this disease. Decisions such as this will contribute to the continuous spread of Covid, a disease which has killed over 700,000 Americans, infected millions more, devastated our economy, and increases the chances of creating new variants which could be even more deadly. How sad!
Mr Tate’s decision is his decision, not governments. The decision NOT to ‘vaccinate’ children may be the right one, based on current known rates of infection and severity of infection. Your premise that SARS CoV-2 is deadly to all is mistaken. We can easily see the infection and death rates by age group, for Vermont and the US. Children that do become infected have mild or no symptoms and receive the benefit of natural immunity. In Vermont, there has been one death, 20-29 age group- and none below that age group, per DOH dashboard. Weighing this against the VAERS website, is the risk from the ‘vaccine’ higher than the risk of the virus for children? You may think so, I’m not convinced. If I had children who have natural immunity, I would not allow ‘vaccination’ based on the unknown risk of the ‘vaccine’. You, the CDC, saint anthony fauci nor Dr. Mark Levine can offer any convincing evidence otherwise. You and they can only spout the dogma of ‘vaccination’ and statistics that are suspect.
the vaxxed are currently being hospitalized at a higher rate than unvaxxed!
Re: “Taking the vaccine is a lawful order. Statistically it is proven to be highly effective against a highly contagious disease.”
Beware the proverbial false dichotomy.
First, any employment organization has the right, lawfully, to require vaccination. At the same time, any employee has the right to not work for that organization. But consider, just for a moment, the protestations that would (or will) occur if a ‘vaccination passport’ is required for a citizen to vote.
And yes, the vaccines (some of them at least) have been “proven to be highly effective against a highly contagious disease”. But ‘highly’ effective – compared to what? Are the vaccines as effective as natural immunity? Not according to several respected studies.
And what about Antibody-dependent Enhancement (ADE)? Check it out.
I too have been vaccinated in the past. But it was my choice. A risk/reward assessment. I took a rabies vaccine not long ago because I came in contact with a rabid racoon. After all, rabies is 99% fatal. Covid, on the other hand, is 99% non-fatal.
As an adult, my healthcare decisions have always been my choice. And never has my employment status been affected by an ‘ex post facto’ order without some offer of compensation. Article I, Section 9, Clause 3, of the U.S. Constitution, states: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.” Therefore, the current requirement to which you and others have been subjected has, in my opinion, now crossed the line into political coercion and is no longer lawful.
Did the “apolitical military” offer people an honorable discharge if they refused to walk the vaccination corridor? If not, why do it now?
Does the “apolitical military” perhaps have any opinions on Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity?
It smells like a purge to me.
Of course the “deep state” changed the definition of “vaccine”, no matter how changed, the so called vaccine is not a vaccine, it does not contain the contagion that causes the flu.
What should be of concern, is the fact that this is a depopulation method to make room for the chinese to feed their population.
Please read this article coming from someone who has real authority:
Chinese Communist Party Vaccine Plan
Dear RON,
Chinese billionaire dissident, Miles Guo says the quiet part out loud, as he describes the CCP’s vaccine plan to conquer the West.
Guo, who lives in exile in New York is the financier of the Chinese Whistleblower Movement, which broke the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop and which publishes the GTV.org and GNews.org websites. He has been correct so far in his assessments of the progress of the CCP’s Unrestricted Warfare campaign against the US.
He says the goal of vaccinating the militaries of the West is to wipe them out so China can take over and once these militaries are vaccinated, the campaign to get everybody vaccinated will end and an “antidote” will be offered that won’t save the lives of the vaccinated but it will stop them from shedding to others.
Miles Guo says:
“What the CCP wants the most is to have the troops get vaccinated. Once they get vaccinated, the US military will collapse and the CCP will triumph.
“After the US troops are vaccinated, I tell you the vaccination against the CCP virus will basically be near the end…Especially when Wall Street, Hollywood celebrities, the White House and the troops are vaccinated, I can assure you there will be no vaccination issue.
“The people implementing the vaccination are soon to be finished. Those who are pushing the vaccination behind the scenes will likely have achieved their goals. Vaccination will no longer be pushed, and the antidote will be certainly offered. The antidote will pop up.
“What is the antidote for? It’s not to heal the damage brought by the vaccines, it’s to prevent you from transmitting the virus instead of a remedy for the vaccines.
“Those who were vaccinated are sentenced to death. The antidote for the vaccines is still in the hands of the CCP. Since the CCP wants you to die, how would they offer the antidote to you?”