【《We Chinese in America》Media Editor Tang Zhao, July 6, 2022】The Air Force has been struggling with pilot shortages for years now. (US Air Force fighter Pilot. Photo Credit: Business Insider)

Former Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein testified before congress in 2017 about a shortage of aviators, writing in 2016 that the situation was a “quiet crisis.”

A Department of Defense (DoD) report from 2019 noted that by the end of FY 2018, the Air Force was “short 2,000 pilots out of a total inventory of 18,400.”

“I know of personally more than 700 pilots who are actively unvaccinated and have filed a religious accommodation or have filed for a medical exemption or something of the sort,” Bowes said.

A letter from November 2021 from DoD pilots submitting religious accommodation for vaccination to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees details the impacts based on an analysis of a group of 357 pilots that did not want to take the COVID vaccines.

Their estimated value was totaled at $7.8 billion tax dollars, 4,842 years of cumulative service, and 14 years of service on average.

Nineteen percent of them support the mission of nuclear deterrence, 69 percent are instructors, and nine percent are Air Force Weapons Instructors or Navy TOPGUN graduates.

“The implications of 700 pilots is pretty extreme,” Bowes said in an interview with LifeSite news.

Recently, an American Airlines pilot suffered a cardiac arrest between flights after mandatory COVID vaccination, and a law group started suing all major airlines over the vaccine mandates.

Attorneys and doctors have also charged that the FAA is violating its own rule that pilots should not fly after having taken medications that have been approved for less than a year.

A spokesperson for the USAF explained the religious accommodation process for the COVID vaccine in the military branch in an email statement:

“Airmen or Guardians seeking an immunization exemption are required to submit their request to their MAJCOM or Field Command commander, after counseling with their unit commander and a military medical provider. For a religious accommodation, in addition to counseling with the unit commander and medical provider a military chaplain interviews the requester. Exemption requests are evaluated on their own merit and the decision authority must consider the compelling government interest in mission accomplishment, which includes military readiness, unit cohesion and the health and safety of both the member and the unit. Once a decision is made by the MAJCOM or Field Command commander, the service member is notified of the decision. Appeals go to the DAF Surgeon General. The member does not have to get an immunization as long as the request is still in the process of being decided,” the statement reads.

“Members who receive a denial of the accommodation request have 5 calendar days from the denial to 1) begin a COVID-19 vaccination regimen, 2) submit an appeal to the final appeal authority or 3) request to separate or retire. Members who continue refusing to obey a lawful order to receive the COVID-19 vaccine after their accommodation request has been denied or retirement/separation has not been approved will be subject to initiation of administrative discharge proceedings.”

(Source: World News Network )

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