Oklahoma Governor Fires Top General, Declares Guard Exempt From Vaccine

[rangerrebew]

Oklahoma Governor Fires Top General, Declares Guard Exempt From Vaccine
Mil & Intel   

By Maggie BenZvi | November 12, 2021

The governor of Oklahoma believes he can declare the state’s National Guard exempt from the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, and he appears to have fired the Guard’s top general and installed a different one who agrees with him.

On Thursday, Nov. 11, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt replaced Maj. Gen. Michael Thompson with Brig. Gen. Thomas Mancino as commander of the Oklahoma National Guard, a position known as the state adjutant general. Mancino immediately released instructions that Oklahoma National Guard and Air National Guard members did not need to follow the vaccine mandate.

Mancino cited the Oklahoma state constitution and federal Title 32, which covers National Guard units when not federalized. Mancino said the governor was the lawful commander in chief of the Oklahoma National Guard when the Guard was not federally mobilized, and he noted that Stitt was seeking to exempt the Oklahoma Guard from the Pentagon mandate.

https://coffeeordie.com/oklahoma-guard-vaccine/

[mountaineer]

Members of the military, including the National Guard, should be free to make their own choices when it comes to getting this injection. Of course, so should we civilians.

[Bigun]

Members of the military, including the National Guard, should be free to make their own choices when it comes to getting this injection. Of course, so should we civilians.

 

[Fishrrman]

Kudos to governor Stitt for making the appointment, and more kudos to Gen. Mancino for taking the stand that he has.

We need to see EVERY governor in every red state do something similar, and find more high-ranking officers who are as... independent.

We're going to need them (and many more) in the struggle that lies ahead.

[mystery-ak]

Pentagon says Oklahoma National Guard must follow vaccine mandate
By Ellen Mitchell - 11/15/21 06:21 PM EST

The Pentagon can require Oklahoma National Guard members to get the COVID-19 vaccine, despite the state’s highest-ranking military official insisting he will not mandate that members be inoculated, the Defense Department’s top spokesman said Monday.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “has the authorities he needs to require this vaccine across the force, including the National Guard,” press secretary John Kirby told reporters.

“It is a lawful order for National Guardsmen to receive the COVID vaccine. It is a lawful order,” Kirby later said. “Refusing to do that, absent an approved exemption, puts them in the same potential [for punishment] as active-duty members who refuse the vaccine.”


Austin in mid-September mandated that all uniformed personnel get vaccinated for the coronavirus, although the deadline to do so varies by branch.

Last week, however, the newly appointed commander of the Oklahoma National Guard, Army Brig. Gen. Thomas Mancino, wrote in a memo that no member of the Oklahoma National Guard will be required to get vaccinated.

more
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/581650-pentagon-says-oklahoma-national-guard-must-follow-vaccine-mandate