Coast Guard rescue swimmer faces discharge for refusal of COVID vaccine
Technician Second Class Zach Loesch speaks out on facing firing from his Coast Guard position for refusing the COVID vaccine on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'
President Biden personally called U.S. Coast Guard rescue swimmer Zach Loesch to thank him for a brave rescue of a disabled woman and her husband in Florida, just a short time before he is scheduled to be discharged for not submitting to an injection of the coronavirus vaccine.
Loesch spoke to "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Fox News Wednesday as more than 1,000 USCG members are suing the government for allegedly denying nearly all requests for religious exemption from COVID vaccine. He underlined he was speaking as a private citizen and not on behalf of the Coast Guard, saying that he is within a 30-to 60-day window before he is expected to be discharged.
Host Tucker Carlson said the vaccination serums, marketed in the U.S. by Pfizer, Janssen and Moderna, have been "thoroughly discredited" and are reportedly not geared specifically toward any of the newer variants that account for most recent infections.
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A USCG chopper. (Don Campbell/The Herald-Palladium via AP)
According to Carlson, Biden told Loesch "how proud I was of him, and I thanked him for all the work he and his coasters are doing to save lives," but left out the fact it is his executive branch policy that will lead to the technician second-class to be essentially fired.
Loesch called it a "fair assumption" to surmise that in order to be a USCG rescue swimmer, one must be in rigorous physical shape, despite the number of forthcoming discharges based on such health care-related grounds.
"Our school is pretty difficult and rigorous. We have a pretty high attrition rate. And quarterly we complete tests to make sure that we are ready to go for duty," he said.
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A video shared by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office shows deputies venture into 10 feet-deep rushing floodwaters to rescue the woman. (Orange County Sheriff's Office)
"I don't know why [the administration] would want to be doing that," he said. "But I do know that I would like to continue working this job. And it's a job that I'm really good at and a lot of others are really good at."
"There was other rescue swimmers down there in Ian with me, and we were all doing the same thing, and we would all like to keep our jobs."
When asked if he is receiving any support from his congressmen or other representation, Loesch replied that some "are trying" but that the overall noncompliance discharge situation is tied up in courts.
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First Lady Jill Biden reportedly believes President Biden has been managed with "kid gloves," according to Politico. (Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
"So it's just not happening fast enough for us to be safe from this before we get discharged," Loesch said.
Loesch previously told Breitbart News that he did not want to explicitly bring up his pending discharge when Biden called to thank him.
"It just sucks that he thanked me yet the vaccine mandate is what’s kicking me out," he told the outlet.
About 2,600 total Coast Guard servicemembers refused to be injected with the vaccine, according to the New York Post. In a recent interview on "Fox & Friends," NSC spokesman John Kirby defended the policy, saying that as a retired rear admiral in the Navy, he had to agree to several vaccines and medical treatments as a condition of service.
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