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Tags: defense | mandatory | vaccination | politicized | gop

Rep. Tony Gonzales to Newsmax: 'Military Being Politicized'

By    |   Monday, 09 August 2021 06:26 PM EDT

The political pressure being put on the U.S. military is "scary" and "wrong," particularly when it comes to mandating an emergency-use authorization vaccine against one's will, according to Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, on Newsmax.

"What's happening is you're seeing the military be politicized," Gonzales, a U.S. Navy veteran, told Monday's "The Chris Salcedo Show." "It should not be that way. The military should be focusing on one thing: Fighting and winning American wars. That is it, period.

"And they're getting sucked up into the social kind of justice that's happening and it's scary. It's wrong. I don't want to wake up and not recognize my own Navy, and that's exactly what is occurring."

Gonzales was asked by host Chris Salcedo if the veteran supported the Department of Defense mandating the COVID-19 vaccination as of Sept. 15, as The Associated Press reported from a memo Monday.

"I am not comfortable with the Department of Defense mandating to people that they should get this vaccine," Gonzalez said, noting he was not against vaccination but for personal choice and freedom. "Look, encourage it all day long, offering to those who want to get it, all day long, right? We're all in on this together."

Gonzalez served in the Navy for 20 years and noted he did not note a change in political leadership under former President Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, but now the military has changed and become reflective of who is in the White House, according to Gonzales.

"What you're seeing right before our very eyes is our military is getting sucked up into this political football," he concluded.

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Eric Mack

Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.

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The political pressure being put on the U.S. military is "scary" and "wrong," particularly when it comes to mandating an emergency-use authorization vaccine against one's will, according to Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, on Newsmax....
defense, mandatory, vaccination, politicized, gop
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2021-26-09
Monday, 09 August 2021 06:26 PM
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