The Pentagon reversed course on mandatory flu vaccinations for military recruits on Wednesday, reinstating the requirement across all service branches just weeks after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made the shots optional in April.
The decision came as a flu outbreak at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, has sickened nearly 300 recruits. A Pentagon official told the Associated Press that the timing was coincidental, though the outbreak made the reversal impossible to ignore.
When Hegseth announced the vaccine mandate's repeal in late April, citing "medical autonomy" and religious freedom protections, he allowed each military service to request exceptions within 15 days. The Pentagon official said those exceptions were being finalized in early June, independent of what was happening in Texas.
The math at Lackland told a different story. The base processes roughly 700 new recruits weekly. When the vaccine became optional, only 40 percent of incoming trainees chose to get the shot. That low uptake created ideal conditions for rapid disease spread in an environment where recruits sleep in large open bays, shower communally, and spend weeks in constant close contact under high stress and sleep deprivation.
Democratic congressman Joaquin Castro, whose district includes part of the base, confirmed the outbreak has produced 275 confirmed flu cases over roughly three weeks. Arnold Monto, a flu expert and emeritus professor at the University of Michigan, said preventing outbreaks in group settings requires vaccination as a priority.
The Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell confirmed that exceptions to the vaccine mandate were granted to the Army, Navy, Air Force, the National Security Agency, and the Defense Health Agency. Army and Navy officials have indicated they plan to make the shot mandatory for certain groups of recruits.
Public health advocates seized on the reversal. Michele Slafkosky, executive director of Families Fighting Flu, called the updated guidance a life-saving move after more than 200 individuals at Lackland became ill when the requirement was removed.
Author James Rodriguez: "Hegseth's gamble on medical autonomy lasted just six weeks in the real world, and it took a preventable outbreak of 275 cases to prove why the military had mandatory flu shots in the first place."
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