As of June 30, 2026, two-hundred- eighty-four Air Force trainees at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio have contracted the flu. The Air Force reports that Trainee Keon McDaniel has died from flu complications.
This tragedy came just a few months after Secretary of “War” Hegseth cancelled the long-held policy of mandatory vaccinations for the military. That policy had been a part of our military’s strength and readiness since General George Washington ordered immunization against smallpox for his troops on February 7, 1777.
It is considered a major reason he defeated the British army, by preventing the certain spread of this terrible disease among the closely quartered soldiers. Recruitment was boosted because men did not fear death from smallpox in Washington’s army. They were healthy and ready to fight.
At that time in history, smallpox killed about 30 percent of those who contracted it. A smallpox vaccine had not been developed yet, but this immunization was done by a process called variolation. A tiny amount of liquid swabbed from an infected person’s skin, where a pox was oozing, was put on scratched places on soldiers. They only developed mild cases and were then permanently protected.
Hegseth is unqualified to make medical decisions such as he did. He had been a Fox News reporter and said on February 10, 2019, on “Fox and Friends Sunday”: “Germs are not a real thing. I can’t see them, therefore they are not real.” He added that he had not washed his hands in 10 years.
(He later posted on Twitter that he had been joking but never corrected it on air.) And people believed that garbage!
And the man in charge of the nation’s health, Secretary of Health & Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has bragged that he has snorted cocaine off toilet seats.
Secretary Hegseth has blood on his hands, not only that of that young trainee, but also those of more than 160 innocent schoolgirls killed on the first day of the bombing of Iran.
If we care about human lives, we should make our protests clear that the killings must end. Senseless wars cost deaths for innocent civilians. Unqualified leaders and their incorrect decisions about vaccinations are also causing deaths and needless diseases. Experienced medical professionals with knowledge of how to prevent diseases ought to oversee our nation’s health, and skilled scientists are the best people to trust on all science-related issues.
Recent tragedies—like the one at Lackland Air Force base, the current measles outbreak, and looming ones such as the spreading of Ebola in Africa—prove that we need experts who are trained in their areas of expertise. False information is dangerous and harmful. Accurate information is essential for good health.
Dr. Jonas Salk developed the vaccine that completely eradicated the terrible disease of polio. The COVID19 vaccine is responsible for saving countless numbers of lives and helped alleviate the dread from that Pandemic.
We do not benefit from having merely political appointees who have no qualifications for the important positions they hold.
Some high school science or biology teachers whom I personally know are better suited to making health decisions than are Secretary Hegseth and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.