The Institution or the Constitution
By Robert A. Green Jr. & W. Dean Lee
March 25, 2024
U.S. Army
Unraveling the COVID-19 Mandates for the Joint Force
Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety — Benjamin Franklin
Introduction & Why It Matters
In early 2020, life around the globe changed when a pandemic erupted out of Wuhan, China. The impacts were significant, with governments electing to shutter economies and restrict freedom of movement in an attempt to keep their populations safe. At the time, little was known about the virus or how to mitigate its health risks. Many individuals were willing to accept these restrictions as temporary measures to help “stop the spread.” As “two weeks” became two years, most of the mitigation measures were ultimately mandated to military personnel, introducing a constitutional crisis between safety and personal liberty. After three years, the time has come for us to take an honest, retrospective assessment of this “black swan” event and the impact, if any, on the constitutional rights of service members.
Within the Department of Defense (DoD), COVID-19 is attributed with causing the deaths of 96 service members.
The loss of these service members is unquestionably tragic. Yet, in many ways the American people could look at this relatively low number as a triumph due, in part, to the mandated mitigation measures. After all, with a total of 453,456 documented COVID-19 infections, a survivability rate of 99.9997% should seem like a huge win for DoD leaders who prioritized the health of the Joint Force.[ii] However, this survivability rate does not appear to differ significantly from the pre-vaccine survivability rate of the rest of the U.S. military-aged population, with all 25-34 year-olds at 99.9943% and all 35-44 year-olds at 99.984% survivability respectively.[iii] With such a minimal return, particularly for military-age persons, the decision to mandate nearly every possible health mitigation was not without risks. Along with the mandated mitigation measures came a legal and constitutional crisis, unprecedented in scope in U.S. military history. If ignored and left unresolved, this constitutional crisis will continue to negatively impact the Joint Force and the future of the nation—long after the COVID-19 pandemic has become a distant memory.
What this Article Will and Will Not Do
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/03/25/the_institution_or_the_constitution_1020522.html
