Remember when Secretary of Defense Austin said “I’ve not seen any hard data that directly links the COVID mandate to an affect on our recruiting” at a news conference? “Data” has become the sheep’s clothing for “if a study wasn’t conducted, then we don’t have to admit that reality is, in fact, reality.” Now that the mandate is dead, the US Navy has started sending out auto texts across the nation in the hopes they can miraculously salvage some vestige of what’s left of a disenfranchised population to join their ranks, very much in opposition of Lloyd Austin’s “data.”
Of course it would be disingenuous of me not to point out the fact that everyone else was fully aware that the mandate was destroying recruitment. Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss. sent a letter to the Secretary of Defense in July stating “the Department is simultaneously bleeding its best and brightest while desperately trying to recruit new talent. This is not a blueprint for success.”
Even as recent as December of last year, immediately preceding the lifting of the mandate, Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. David H. Berger stated, “the COVID-19 vaccine mandate is contributing to the military’s recruitment troubles.”
Congress knew, the Joint Chiefs of Staff knew, but apparently the Secretary of Defense didn’t know. I guess all of those letters from Congress must have gotten lost in the mail or something. Well, maybe the Navy’s auto texts can save the Secretary of Defense from his apparent inability to read.