The ongoing legal battle over whether the military can force troops to get the jab has left the ship docked in Norfolk, Virginia. U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday issued an order last month banning the Navy and Marine Corps from taking any disciplinary action against the unnamed Navy warship commander and a Marine Corps lieutenant colonel for refusing to get the vaccine.
Merryday granted a preliminary injunction barring the Navy from requiring the commander or the lieutenant colonel to take the vaccine or issuing “any punitive or retaliatory measure against [them] pending a final judgment in the case,” according to Stripes and Stars.
On Thursday, Merryday denied the U.S. Department of Defense’s request to halt the injunction.
Captain Frank Brandon, the commodore of Destroyer Squadron 26, stated in court documents that he lost faith in the commander’s leadership after he went to work while exhibiting coronavirus symptoms, violating a Navy order for symptomatic personnel to get tested.
In the court documents, Brandon alleged that the commander reported to work while sick, putting the crew at risk, and that the commander also failed to report he was traveling outside of the ship while experiencing COVID-19 symptoms.
Brandon ordered the commander to get a test, which revealed that he had COVID and exposed “dozens” of others to the virus, according to the court filings.
“I believe that Plaintiff Navy Commander intentionally misled me,” Brandon said in a written court document. “This is cause alone for removal of Command. If I cannot trust the Commanding Officer of a guided-missile destroyer to honestly apprise me of his whereabouts, I cannot trust him with command of this ship and her crew.”
“By forcing the Navy to keep in place a commander of a destroyer who has lost the trust of his superior officers and the Navy at large, this Order effectively places a multi-billion-dollar guided-missile destroyer out of commission,” defense attorneys wrote.
Other Navy leaders have expressed their concern for the commander’s anti-vaccine stance. In February 28 court filings, Admiral Daryl Caudle filed a statement saying the Navy doesn’t have room for sailors who disobey vaccination rules.
“In the deadly business of protecting our national security, we cannot have a Sailor who disobeys a lawful order to receive a vaccine because they harbor a personal objection any more than we can have a Sailor who disobeys the technical manual for operating a nuclear reactor because he or she believes they know better,” he wrote.
Newsweek reached out to the Navy for comment.
