Back in the April of 1981, I was a very young 2nd lieutenant who just arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base for my very first military assignment. I was excited after four years of college and ROTC to finally be wearing my uniform proudly and actually doing military stuff full-time.

While in college, I had volunteered for assignment to the ICBM career field within the Strategic Air Command, or SAC. I was to be a missile-launch officer, one of those fellows (then all-male, now fully open to anyone) who would sit in underground launch facilities, in command of a set of nuclear-tipped intercontinental missiles, ready to launch said weapons upon lawful order. It was then, and remains today, a heady responsibility.

But before I could “pull alert,” I had to be trained, of course. So, I arrived at Vandy (as we call the base) for “missile school.” It has a fancier name, but it is where you learn the totality of what you need to know to ultimately pull alerts and oversee actual nuclear weapons.

I remember very clearly the very first day and the very first session. Over the next 16 weeks we would be taught the mechanics of all the hardware in the launch facility as well as the top-secret stuff about actually going to war and launching. But first, they wanted us to truly understand what nuclear weapons were and what they could do, and it wasn’t pretty.

On that first morning of the first day, we all gathered in the main briefing room and heard a lecture on what it actually would mean to be a “nuclear weapons release authority.” We were shown classified and unclassified information about what going to war is actually like. We were shown disturbing and troubling images as well as making it clear to us that, given our relatively shallow depths of our buried launch facilities, we would almost certainly be killed by an adversary’s (guess who) missile if war ever came. It was stark and powerful, and it helped us to remember that our job was deeply and fundamentally different from any work you’d find outside the military.

Fast forward about a year, to mid-1982, I had arrived at FE Warren AFB in Cheyenne, and was a proud member of the 320th ICBM squadron, pulling alerts and training for a mission we hoped would never be needed. One of my fellow crewmembers, also a young 2nd LT, was becoming deeply troubled over the idea of launching weapons. He became so distraught that he declared to his commander that he could never “turn keys” (meaning to actually launch the missiles) and he wanted out. He was separated from the Air Force and ultimately became a Greek Orthodox priest. We could never risk having an officer sitting alert who would, in a horrible time of crisis, refuse to obey his orders.

I was reminded of those days when I read a recent story, reported in The Gazette and elsewhere, about a small group of Air Force Academy cadets who claimed a religious opposition to the COVID-19 vaccine and had refused the inoculation. They were all being given a chance to change their minds, but if they didn’t, they would be separated from the Air Force. That group includes four seniors, who are just a couple of weeks shy of graduation. 

Though I respect that they may have deeply held religious beliefs, as did my old colleague noted above, at the end of the day, they need to either get the darn shots, or get out. I’m sorry, but the United States military is no place for them.

At the most basic level, people who refuse to be immunized are not deployable. They can’t do the actual military mission, and that makes them a liability at best, and a danger at worst. Now, given the many, many vaccinations I got over my 25-year career, I don’t get the issue. I know there are some claims about fetal tissue being used in one part of one vaccine manufacture, but various religious authorities have said the shot is OK. Heck, the Pope said getting the vaccine is a moral obligation.

I know there are good-hearted and well-intended people out there that think the Air Force Academy is being unfair, and that they should accommodate the cadets. Sorry, no. The military is not like working at any other job. The only one that comes close is law enforcement. As I told the cadets I taught at the Academy, their job as military officers, at its core, is to be willing and able to kill people and blow things up. That isn’t neat and clean, but it is true. And if you are not able to be fully with me in a metaphoric (and sometimes literal) foxhole, fully able to function (meaning kill if necessary), you are a danger to your unit, and you might cause others to face injury or death.

If one doesn’t wish to live by the military’s rules, that’s fine. But that person doesn’t get to bend the military to their wishes, because, again, the military’s mission is fundamentally different and dangerous. We can’t have people who might choose to decide which lawful orders to obey, based on their personal beliefs. That may be OK if you work for Ford, but not if you are asked to operate weapons systems designed to deter and, if necessary, destroy an enemy.

Sorry to be harsh, but I can’t even count the number of times that I rolled up my sleeve for a vaccine or other mandated shot. I understood then, as I do now, that a military must be able to respond quickly and effectively.

If you don’t want the COVID shot, OK, I guess, but you don’t have a right to military service. I sincerely hope those cadets, especially the four seniors, change their minds and continue their path toward military service. But if not, I wish them well in their civilian lives. There is no place for them in the military.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.