An Air Force pilot who has sought a religious exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine and all other vaccines expects that he will face punishment for refusing to get vaccinated.
Air Force Maj. Jeremy Franks, who had performed air mobility missions for more than 15 years, was immediately grounded following Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s August 2021 military vaccine mandate. Franks, who spoke to The Epoch Times using a pseudonym because of concern about reprisals, hasn’t flown since.
Following a federal court’s decision that granted a temporary injunction to protect members of the Air Force seeking religious exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine, Franks said his commander told him, “It’s time to get back in the air.” However, a religious decision to decline all vaccines has kept him from flying, and the future is “rather bleak,” he says.
While the military has rescinded its COVID-19 vaccine mandate, barring branches from taking any punitive action against those who sought an exemption to the vaccine, Franks’s objection to all vaccines means that he still faces potential disciplinary action.
“Initially, the use of fetal tissue in the COVID-19 vaccine testing and production phase was the reason I refused the vaccines,” he told The Epoch Times. “But the same corrupt, nepotistic system that rubber-stamps approvals for COVID-19 vaccines also produces other ones, like the flu vaccine, for example.”
As a result, Franks submitted a religious accommodation request for all vaccines, including the flu.
He said he was told by his command that refusing the flu shot, in particular, would make him non-deployable because of the entry requirements of other countries. He said that when he asked which countries require the annual flu shot, his command couldn’t provide an answer.
“In the meantime, I’ve learned so many terrible, immoral things about how all of those are made, what’s in them, and the injuries they cause globally each year that are just swept under the rug,” he said. “I can’t in good conscience, before my God, take any other vaccine.”
He said he expects his religious accommodation request to be denied.
By J.M. Phelps
