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.”