Is anyone surprised?

Fewer than 10 of the more than 2,000 sailors discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine have expressed interest in rejoining the Navy now that the shot isn’t required, a service official told lawmakers Tuesday.

“We’ve had single digits in terms of numbers of individuals who explored the option of returning to service,” Navy Under Secretary Erik Raven said during a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee’s personnel subcommittee.

Testifying alongside Raven, Army Under Secretary Gabe Camarillo said he did not know how many soldiers have sought to return, and Air Force Under Secretary Gina Ortiz Jones did not address how many airmen want to rejoin.

Tuesday’s hearing was the personnel subcommittee’s first under the chairmanship of Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., who has said he wants to use the post to target “woke” Pentagon policies.

Republicans use the term woke to refer to a wide range of Biden administration policies they disagree with, including the military’s now-defunct COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Republicans, despite controlling neither chamber of Congress at the time, successfully fought for a provision in last year’s defense policy bill repealing the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Service members are required to take about a dozen other vaccines, but Republicans argued the mandate trampled on individual liberties and hurt the military as a whole by discharging thousands of troops at a time when the military is struggling with recruitment.

With the mandate gone, Republicans have vowed to continue fighting to reinstate, with back pay, the more than 8,000 troops who were discharged for refusing when ordered to get the vaccine.

Officials at Tuesday’s hearing indicated they have no plans to initiate a special process to reinstate the discharged troops. . . . (read more on Military.com)