OPINION | This article contains commentary that reflects the author's opinion.
Disturbing images have surfaced showing the horrible living conditions of U.S. Navy service members who are seeking religious exemptions against Joe Biden’s unwise, unsafe, and unconstitutional COVID-19 drug mandate.
The military members are seeking religion exemptions, which the Department of Defense has refused to give them. In the meantime, they have been unable to leave while awaiting termination from the military.
A lawsuit was filed by 35 active-duty SEALs and three reservists who are seeking a religious exemption to the mandate.
This is a class action lawsuit that expands to encompass all Navy service members who are seeking religious accommodation.
Their living conditions have been described as “deplorable.” Take a look:
One sailor explained, “There is some sort of worm thriving in the stagnant water in the toilet bowls and on the floor in the leaked water around the base of the toilets.”
“Needless to say, I do not feel comfortable or safe in this environment and I have contacted mental health services multiple times,” continued the sailor.
“Because I could not leave the area, I moved onto the berthing barge for the Eisenhower. The conditions on the barge are deplorable, much like the USS George Washington, which is anchored in the same shipyard. There is mold everywhere and the barge’s toilets back up and leak. The water leaks out of the base of the toilet and collects near my rack and out into the hall. On bad days, it goes into the berthings on the other side. The leaks seem to be sewage—it smells like sewage and looks like it too. See Exhibit C (water I’ve mopped up from under my rack).”
“I do want—desperately—to be separated from the Navy as soon as possible, but I struggle with withdrawing my request as I feel it could signal that my religious objection was somehow not genuine, and it is. It feels wrong to have to renounce my beliefs in order to get the Navy to separate me,” they continued.
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In March, the Supreme Court blocked a lower court’s order in Texas that would have forced the Navy to stop implementing the vaccine mandate. Now, the case is continuing to be litigated in lower courts around the country, and unvaccinated SEALs and other sailors who have not yet been terminated by the U.S. government are stuck in limbo, with many of them forced into less-than-desirable alternative housing by the military or barred from traveling outside their base.
In a court filing in June by First Liberty in the Northern District of Texas Fort Worth Division District Court, sailors recounted deplorable conditions on large U.S. vessels, where they remain waiting as their cases are adjudicated.
One sailor who is now part of the class action lawsuit said in a court-filed declaration that they “could not leave the area” after asking to be terminated from the military due to religious objections to the mandate and were moved to the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier’s berthing barge, where the conditions are “deplorable.”
Another Navy technician who has served for more than nine years said in written testimony that their performance rating started suffering after submitting a religious exemption.
“Prior to the vaccine mandate, I consistently earned a ‘must promote’ rating on my performance evaluations. This year, because I submitted a religious accommodation and was planning on separating, I was given a ‘promote’ status. This downgrade in ranking makes it appear as if my skills as a sailor have regressed. I have maintained my work throughout the year and was told during a briefing on my evaluation that the rating was not due to my performance, but my upcoming separation because of the denial of my religious accommodation,” they stated.
“To date, I am still unable to separate. My work environment feels extremely toxic over the vaccine issue, which has caused both my wife and I much stress. Because of my sincerely held religious objection, I will not take the COVID-19 vaccine. Because of the hardship and stress this process has brought to my family, I do not wish to be a part of the United States Navy anymore.”
