Republicans forced the military to rescinded their COVID vaccine mandate in the defense appropriations bill that passed last year. Now the talking heads over on Fox & Friends want them to apologize for it as well.

The yakkers on Fox have been doing their best to make sure as many members of their audience as humanly possible wind up getting COVID for years now. Nothing has changed in that regard other than the fact that they've gotten even more self-righteous and obnoxious about it.

As Politico reported: Pentagon mulls back pay for troops kicked out over Covid vaccine mandate:

The Pentagon is considering providing back pay to former service members who were discharged for refusing to get the Covid-19 vaccine, now that the mandate has been repealed, according to a spokesperson.

The Defense Department formally rescinded the mandate in a memo from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday, after lawmakers directed the Pentagon to do so in the annual defense policy bill that passed into law in December. The military had already stopped discharging troops who refused the shot.

Austin’s memo opened the door to reinstating troops who believe they were wrongfully let go, stipulating that service members and veterans may apply to correct their records. While the military has not yet made a decision on providing back pay to service members for the time that they were discharged, a spokesperson said the department is looking into it. [...]

Providing back pay would be a win for Republicans who railed against the vaccine mandate. Last year, a bloc of GOP senators, led by Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, won a fight to repeal the policy after threatening to stall the annual defense policy bill if they didn’t receive a vote on ending the mandate and reinstating troops with back pay.

That's all the excuse they needed to once again rail against the "experimental" vaccine on Fox & Friends this Sunday.

HEGSETH: You guys, another topic that concerns our country, you remember during COVID when a lot of members of the military were kicked out for not take taking a experimental vaccine that was made mandatory across the Defense Department. Well now our recruiting levels are in the tank. The Army and other services can't get guys to join or get guys and gals to reenlist.

So before we get to this, here's what the Army said in February of 2022. So here's how the army described the need for the vaccine in the Army in 2022. They said “Army readiness depends on soldiers who are prepared to train, deploy, fight and win our nation's wars. Unvaccinated soldiers present risk to the force and jeopardize readiness. We will begin involuntarily separation proceedings for soldiers when refuse the vaccine order and are not pending a final decision on an exemption.”

So that was a year and a half ago, it was absolutely fundamental that these guys had to be kicked out.

CAIN: Just a reminder how we are so susceptible to collective insanity.

HEGSETH: No doubt.

CAIN: We dismissed soldiers because of COVID.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: And we had a general on this show say that that was actually, you know, if something went wrong with the vaccine, that that was actually really dangerous for the troops, to have everybody on this experimental vaccine.

HEGSETH: But there was no discussion of that.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Of course, you couldn't.

HEGSETH: Now here's the letter that's landing in the mailboxes of vets who were kicked out. This is from a Brigadier General Hope Rampy, Army Director of Personnel Management. “Dear former service member, we write to notify you of new Army guidance regarding the correction of military records and former members of the Army following rescission of the COVID-19 vaccine requirement. As a result of the rescission of all current COVID-19 vaccine requirements, former soldiers who were involuntarily separated for their refusal to receive the vaccination may request a correction of their military records.”

CAMPOS-DUFFY: So, just kidding. We're about to go to war, maybe, come on back. Come on back! We need you! All you independent-thinking, probably conservatives who didn't want to take that, come on back, because we need you. We're going to go to war. That just makes me so mad.

CAIN: Seriously. We're going to talk about this a little bit later in the show. We're going to talk about the major league baseball returning it's all-star the game to Atlanta some two years after calling voting laws in Georgia Jim Eagle. You know, Jim Crow 2.0. And nothing's changed in the laws, but guess it's okay now to have an all-star game.

We just, we indulge in insanity, pretend it doesn't happen, two years later, whatever it may be, try to return to normal.

Rachel: are those soldiers are they going to return? You know people who were discharged because they didn't want to talk --

HEGSETH: A lot of them.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: I think the question tough Pete I have for you is that, are those soldiers going to return? I mean, you talk to a lot of people. You know people were discharged because they didn't want to take it, and so, are those people going to go, oh, yeah, because I didn't see an apology in this letter at all.

HEGSETH: I've been interviewing a lot of guys too on this subject too because I've got a book on this subject coming out next year talking to... not under this administration, they're not getting back in. If you had a new Commander in Chief after this upcoming election and then these requirements were loosened, you might have a decent amount of guys saying, hey, yeah, or I'll get back in, this was my life's work. I wanted to be a part of it and I have a Commander in Chief who I believe would use us properly.

But not right now. You're not, they're not going to see some big flood. You might have guys writing back and saying, yeah, you can correct my records so it says I wasn't, you know, dishonorably discharged, or whatever, a general discharge, but not getting back into the ranks.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: But this isn't the main, this is not the main reason of holding back, that was holding back. I personally know people who didn't go into the SEALs because they didn't want to be forced to take the vaccine. I do know people like that, but there are greater issues that are holding back the kind of typical fighting man that would join.

HEGSETH: Absolutely right.

I wonder how many of those soldiers refused to get vaccinated because they're filling their heads with this sort of bile day after day?