(Washington Insider Magazine) -The previous deadline was said to be June 2022 but that has been brought forward for all soldiers to be mobilized on federal orders. This means that the rule will mainly apply to Guardsmen deploying overseas or to the Mexico border on federal Title 10 orders.
This information was obtained from an October 7 memo, bringing the deadline for Guard troops more in line with the rest of the military services. For example, a deadline of December 2 has been set for vaccinations in the Air National Guard and Reserve.
With this new December 15 date, the Army National Guard is now aiming to get more than 90% of their total forces vaccinated by April 2022, although this is still far beyond the aims of the rest of the military. Over 92% of active-duty soldiers already have one vaccine dose.
Almost 16,000 Guard troops current deployed abroad and 3,000 at the Mexican border will fall under this new deadline, as well as any who are set to be deployed after December 15. However, 2,500 of the Guardsman at the border and over 12,000 guards on missions related to the COVID-19 pandemic may not be impacted by the December 15 deadline.
All members of the National Guard have a right to seek exemption from the vaccination rule, with common reasons including religion, adverse reactions to previous injections and other medical concerns. However, they will likely only be successful if they have been consistent with their concerns across previous vaccinations too.
Unfortunately, the number of vaccinated Guardsmen is difficult to track as some have received the vaccine through civilian sources rather than via the army.
Individual states have also now been given a license to impose more strict vaccination deadlines when compared to the federal government. This has already been seen in California and New York.
