(Joshua Paladino, Headline USA) The Maine National Guard admitted that several soldiers, including some seeking religious exemptions from the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, were “accidentally” given a coronavirus injection rather than a flu shot, Just the News reported.
“The Maine National Guard has not, and would never purposefully administer a COVID vaccine in place of an influenza vaccine,” the Maine National Guard said in a statement. “A very small number of service members were accidentally given a COVID vaccine several months ago during a clinic for service members where both shots were being administered.
Former Maine National Guard Specialist Mathew Bouchard, who retired a few months after unwillingly receiving the COVID-19 shot, said a noncommissioned officer administered the dose without his consent and under the guise of giving a flu shot.
Bouchard refused the shot in April 2021 and again in November 2021, but he agreed to get the flu shot. When he arrived at the vaccine site, the Maine National Guard had two lines set up: one for the COVID shots and one for flu shots.
The NCO giving the COVID-19 shots said Bouchard could come to his line to receive the flu shot, but when Bouchard told him that this would break protocol, the NCO reversed his decision.
Both Bouchard and his attorney, R. Davis Younts, said the National Guard should have one table, one line and one NCO per vaccine.
Bouchard went back to the flu shot line, received the dose, and was later told that he accidentally got the COVID shot.
His officers never gave him a religious accommodation request packet to fill out, which his lawyer said he has a right to receive and complete, but the Maine National Guard “simply wouldn’t process” his request.
Younts said he sees a pattern in the Armed Forces “to coerce, embarrass, single out, and lie to” soldiers about medical treatments.
