Top Pentagon officials and key lawmakers are open to the sexual assault shift, but they say applying it more broadly requires far more study and debate.
Staffing levels at the Kabul embassy have already been significantly reduced pending the completion of the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan.
An unknown fraction of service members who were punished for refusing the anthrax vaccine in the late 1990s and early 2000s have sought to have their records corrected, but only a few have had success.
The voluntary COVID-19 vaccine effort stands in stark contrast to the Pentagon’s mandatory Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program, which began in 1998. Those who refused often faced harsh penalties.