Retired Vice Admiral Calls on Coast Guard to Suspend Vaccine Mandate Before ‘Workforce Grows Too Weak’

A hospital corpsman administers a COVID-19 vaccine to a fellow corpsman at Naval Health Clinic Hawaii on Dec. 16, 2020. Naval Health Clinic Hawaii

Amid significant recruiting and manpower shortfalls, a retired U.S. Coast Guard flag officer is concerned about the devastating impacts that the COVID-19 vaccine mandate is having on readiness and mission execution, specifically in the search and rescue (SAR) mission.

Two months ago, in the early morning hours of Oct. 3, Vice Adm. William “Dean” Lee (ret.) posted an open letter to Facebook, directing it to “fellow U.S. Coast Guard flag officers” or the Admirals of the Coast Guard. A week later, he sent a letter directly to the commandant, Adm. Linda Fagan. What was his concern? He called it “a bureaucratic quagmire of good ideas, gone bad.”

“The military vaccine mandate began as a readiness issue,” Lee told The Epoch Times.

“I find no fault in the decisions made by operational commanders at the height of the pandemic who judged it necessary to keep the force ready; I would have done likewise,” he added. “But we are now on the other side of it, and the policy once meant to keep us ready, is now making us unready.”

Lee concluded his 36-year career in 2016 as commander of the Atlantic area, the largest operational command in the Coast Guard, spanning 40 states from the Rocky Mountains to the Arabian Gulf.

“We need current leadership to step back and take an honest look at the risk calculus associated with discharging large numbers of highly trained pilots, flight mechanics, rescue swimmers, and surface operators whose most important mission is to save lives at sea,” he said.

He seeks to convince current leaders to take a strategic pause to temporarily suspend all pending vaccine-related discharges and await the outcome of the courts regarding multiple class action lawsuits currently filed against them and the Department of Defense (DoD). He is hopeful this will occur “before their workforce grows too weak.”

“The American people have moved on,” said Lee, “Yet, we continue enforcing an outdated mandate on people who, for various reasons, do not want to take the experimental vaccine.” Hundreds of trained people are being discharged while the Coast Guard struggles to meet recruiting goals, he said. “Now, the Coast Guard is paying signing bonuses of up to $50,000 to untrained recruits”—a move that Lee said, “defies common logic.”

According to a media spokesperson, as of Oct. 18, the Coast Guard had received 1,250 religious accommodations requests. Only 12 had been approved and 1,238 had been denied.

According to an internal Coast Guard document obtained by Fox News, the Coast Guard is down 2,772 service members. But an inside source who spoke to The Epoch Times on the condition of anonymity said that these numbers are an understatement because it’s based on the number of enlisted personnel only.

Partially citing an internal graph produced by the Coast Guard, and seen by The Epoch Times, the source said the Coast Guard is currently short 2,818 enlisted, 808 officers, 77 warrant officers, adding that the service is also short 912 in reserves. He said there are 5,559 who are not deployable worldwide due to lack of training, administrative, and/or medical holds.

Lee said, “the legality of the order itself is under significant scrutiny in the courts, with at least three federal injunctions in place amongst the various military services.” Those facts alone should warrant a pause in the action,” he added.

His letter to the commandant advised that she holds ultimate responsibility for mission degradation and any resultant lives lost due to her “strict adherence to a policy that is now causing more harm than good.”

Always Ready or Sometimes Ready?

Lee said the Coast Guard has always expressed “great pride” in their motto: Semper Paratus, which means always ready.

“But given their dogged determination to fire these perfectly good people over a vaccination that neither prevents the virus nor the spreading of it, I fear we may have to change that motto to: ‘Sometimes Ready,’” he said.

According to Lee, “Men and women in the field have privately conveyed serious concerns regarding their ability to maintain enough trained people on each watch to launch assets when emergencies arise.”

“It has gotten so bad that some units are complaining that they may have to reduce their response posture from being underway within 30 minutes, to being underway in two hours,” he added.

“That is completely unacceptable in the world of search and rescue.”

A former Coast guard rescue swimmer previously told The Epoch Times that rescue swimmer staffing is at a critically low level, and getting worse.

“Search and rescue is one of the most important missions of the Coast Guard,” Lee said.

“Yet, for refusing to take a shot we’ve all ascertained doesn’t work as advertised, the Coast Guard is willing to bleed itself dry by releasing some of the most productive and well-trained rescue swimmers, technicians, trainers, pilots, and boat drivers in the world.”

This, Lee said, could impact lives a sea. “Currently, the Coast Guard maintains an incredibly expedient 7X24 [seven days per week, 24 hours per day] readiness response standard when people need help,” he said.

The Coast Guard generally launches air or surface assets within 30 minutes of a distress call, he added. “Those standards have been sacrosanct for decades,” Lee said. However, he is gravely concerned that the current path will render the Coast Guard unable to maintain those standards.

“If manpower is short and we can’t get there in time, the whole ordeal can easily move from a search and rescue mission to a search and recovery mission,” he said. “We don’t want to bring back bodies; we much prefer to bring them back breathing.”

And as the Coast Guard continues to lose members from the enforcement of the vaccine mandate, Lee said, “the system is being stressed, so I’m kicking the hornet’s nest to compel Coast Guard leadership to stop the bleed and get back to full operating capacity.”

“It’s time to stop retaliating against those who refuse the vaccine and get back to the mission, because at the end of the day, we exist to save lives,” the retired vice admiral said.

“In short, all I want Coast Guard leadership to do is put a hold on any further discharges until they can get their arms around the impact that this mandate is actually having on readiness, morale, and trust,” Lee concluded.

“Do the right thing: Stay Always Ready.”

Coast Guard leadership and the commandant did not respond to Lee’s letters. The Epoch Times has reached out to the Coast Guard to seek comment.