Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said in a recent exclusive interview with Breitbart News that Congress next year will take up the issue of reinstating troops — with back pay — who were discharged over the vaccine mandate.
“Those are issues that we will take up next year and look at a process or some type of review. I don’t know what that’s going to be. But I do know that there are several [members] that have said they really want to see how we can address some of the inequities,” she said Friday afternoon.
She cited troops who applied for a medical exemption after having COVID and did not want to take the vaccine. “They ended up being removed, and they feel like they had a medical exemption, but they never got an answer. So that is going to be a process that we will move forward on at a future date,” she said.
Blackburn led the push for the repeal of the Biden administration’s military vaccine mandate, which led to the discharge of at least 8,400 troops and threatened the discharge of tens of thousands more, at a time when the military is undergoing a recruitment crisis. The mandate also sidelined tens of thousands of troops from their jobs and pay, including many who had applied for religious or medical exemptions and were waiting to receive a response.
Democrats and the Biden administration staunchly opposed lifting the mandate, but Republicans in the House and Senate pushed to use the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — a bill that authorizes activities and spending for the Department of Defense every year — as a vehicle to overturn the mandate.
On how she was able to do it, Blackburn said that she and her team all “worked closely with making certain that the [Republican] leadership was involved in this — being sure that we had our request in [with leadership], working with Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate.”
She added, “I first proposed [repealing the mandate] back in the summer when we were doing the bill … and they were voted down on a party line vote. But I said, ‘We’re going to come back at this again, during the NDAA floor vote.’ And so we did do that. We stayed right there on top of it. We were able to go ahead and get it in by not letting up — just making it a priority, continuing to work that, working closely with leadership. And Leader McConnell did a great job. His team did a great job working with us on this.”
Other Republican senators backed Blackburn’s efforts, or had previously pushed their own throughout the year. There were also a number of Republican House lawmakers, particularly from the House Freedom Caucus and on the House Armed Services Committee, and individuals such as Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who had challenged the mandate and fought to have it repealed.
Organizations such as Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services (STARRS) and grassroots groups made up of military families and service members also worked behind the scenes to voice their opposition to Congress.
The NDAA is now waiting to be signed by President Joe Biden, who has not yet said if he will do so. However, to date, he has not said he would not sign it. The bill authorizes the DOD’s day-to-date activities for 2023, as well as for it to spend $858 billion on everything from paying troops to new weapons systems and programs.
Blackburn also touted wins she was able to get into the NDAA for constituents in Tennessee.
“When you look at the NDAA [and] the military interests we have in the state, whether it’s Millington Naval Air Station over in Memphis, or it is Fort Campbell, or it’s Arnold engineering and Tullahoma, or Oak Ridge, or our National Guard, then what you know is that there are many interests in Tennessee that are interested in how funding through the NDAA is going to happen, because it affects them, and it affects their communities,” she said.
“We were very pleased to receive funding for Blackhawks and Chinooks for Fort Campbell and, of course, the 101st Division, the 160th [Special Operations Aviation Regiment] that are there. And of course, there is funding for the future vertical lift that you’re going to see in the NDAA, and then the nuclear modernization projects are important to us,” she said.
Female soldiers train on a firing range while wearing new body armor in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. (Mark Humphrey/AP)
“And when you look at Arnold engineering, and Oak Ridge, and SpaceForce, which is in Huntsville, all of these are in close proximity to one another. So it just makes sense that we would be paying more attention to some of those funding mechanisms that are going to have a tremendous impact on us going forward. We also have been very active in trying to spur the growth of a project and a program we call Pathfinder. And being certain that we are connecting our active duty military with researchers, developers, students that are in these research institutions, so that we’re solving the problems for our men and women in uniform,” she said. “We’ve got money in there for cyber, we also have been focused on the MQ-9 program, with some money there. Again, looking at how we how we lift and elevate those programs that are going to serve us well in the future,” Blackburn detailed.
A solider wears a U.S. Space Force uniform during a ceremony for U.S. Air Force airmen transitioning to U.S. Space Force guardian designations at Travis Air Force Base, California, February 12, 2021. (Noah Berger, File/AP)
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