The Hypocrisy of the Anti-vax Patriot
Molly didn’t feel particularly patriotic as she said goodbye to her husband, a Navy doctor, early one morning in September. He was leaving on his second deployment in nine months, with just four days’ notice (he’d gotten only 36 hours’ notice ahead of his previous operation). And although his initial mission had been to the Middle East—on an aircraft carrier as a critical-care physician in case of a COVID-19 outbreak on board—this time he was deploying within the continental United States to support a hospital that was overwhelmed with unvaccinated COVID patients.
The pandemic had been raging in the United States for almost a year and a half. He was leaving behind five children, including his 10-month-old daughter, during a time when support for parents was particularly hard to come by. “The civilian world is asking a
