Attorney General Herb Slatery III refused to comment when reached by The Tennessee Star as the jobs of hundreds of Tennessee National Guard members remain uncertain.
The Star asked Slatery’s office, “Is the Attorney General planning on intervening in the TN National Guard firings due to COVID-19 vaccine refusal by filing a suit?”
Samantha Fisher, the press contact for Slatery’s office replied, “We do not have a comment.”
One of the group of guardsmen’s requests is that Slatery’s office file suit on its behalf.
Slatery’s office is not alone in its refusal to comment.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee refuses to comment as well. Governor Lee’s office refused to respond to several inquiries made on Wednesday by The Star.
A person in the governor’s press office was reached live by phone and The Star was told that the individual would “ping the press secretary to see if they [Governor Lee’s office] were going to say anything” about the matter but no statement of any kind has been issued as of press time.
The Star previously reported sources inside the Tennessee National Guard estimate that there will be much as a 10 percent force reduction resulting from soldiers who are about to be discharged due to refusal to accept a COVID-19 vaccination.
Those soldiers who have outright refused will be discharged no later than June 30, now less than a week away.
Other soldiers who have requested exemptions for religious reasons, such as objections to their believed use of fetal cells in the development and testing of the vaccines, will follow shortly thereafter.
“For the first time in history, this regulation is being ignored despite multiple peer-reviewed studies that now show that natural immunity is as much as 27 times more effective at preventing re-infection of COVID-19, and is more durable than any of the vaccines,” one of the National Guard sources said.
An individual officer with over 20 years of service and multiple deployments had a previous adverse reaction to a vaccine that required hospitalization. Following procedure, the officer requested a medical exemption from the COVID vaccine on the advice of his doctor. His primary care physician wrote a letter advising that the officer was at an elevated risk of a severe reaction if he took the COVID vaccine, which he provided in accordance with procedure. Despite his doctor’s recommendation, his exemption request was denied by the Tennessee Medical Command.
He said, “I literally am in a position of having to choose between my life and my career. What do you do? My biggest question is, how can you fight for the freedom of your country when you have none of that freedom yourself? It’s sad to serve your country for all of these years and have no one stand up for you, including the governor.”
The officer has chosen to retire early.
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Aaron Gulbransen is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]. Follow Aaron on GETTR, Twitter, Truth Social, and Parler.
