Vaccine holdouts at key military bases pose staffing dilemma
Susan Crabtree
In late October, Phil Teuscher’s supervisor showed up at his office at the Navy’s top weapons testing base to let him know his name was on a list of thousands of base personnel who had failed to acknowledge receipt of the COVID-19 vaccine requirement.
In August, all branches of the U.S. military gave its service members and civilian employees an ultimatum: Get the vaccine or face being fired. At the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in California, the remote base where Teuscher has worked for 20 years, the first part of the mandate required all personnel to officially acknowledge receipt of the directive. The next step was a signed statement saying whether they have received a shot.
But Teuscher, 58, and many others who work for the Navy on and around the base have refused to comply with either directive. Using an online messaging app, Teuscher started connecting with other like-minded China Lake workers pushing back against the requirement. The group quickly grew to more than 300 participants, all deeply concerned about receiving the vaccine or outright refusing it. Each day at lunchtime, dozens of workers gather outside the base to protest the mandate.
Some employees connected to the base, all of whom require security clearances to work there, are pointing to underlying health problems they believe the vaccine could exacerbate while others cite religious exemptions. Teuscher, a production manager for a highly sophisticated missile program at the base’s Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, or NAWCWD, is not making either claim. Instead, he’s choosing to fight the legality of the mandate on principle.
“My situation is a little bit different. I could retire but I’m choosing not to,” he tells RealClearPolitics. “I’ve got my 20 years in. … I’m choosing to fight it.”
Other vaccine holdouts aren’t so fortunate and would be forced to find non-military work if they continue to buck the requirement.
But the Navy faces its own dilemma as the deadlines loom. With roughly 10% of the base’s highly educated and trained personnel refusing the shot, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to maintain all the classified weapons and their testing operations in top working order if all resisters are fired.
The high number of workers – civilian and military – refusing to get the vaccine at China Lake and other key research and development bases could force the Navy to make some difficult decisions in the coming months. All of these civilian workers must hold a security clearance just to enter the base, and many hold advanced engineering degrees and extensive technical training that takes years to acquire.
Recruiting and replacing such workers won’t be instant or easy – especially at China Lake. Located in California’s remote Mojave Desert, it’s some 150 miles northeast of Los Angeles. In recent years, the base has experienced serious attrition problems as engineers and other highly skilled workers flee for more lucrative jobs in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, according to several sources familiar with the employment challenges.
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