ACLL believed that the court would want to rule in favor of the SEALS but would be concerned about hurting the readiness of the special forces. Thus, we believed it would be helpful to find special-forces commanders who have been in situations like this and could explain to the court that it would be okay to accommodate the SEALS.

Fortunately, ACLL knew Lt. Gen. (ret.) Jerry Boykin, a retired three-star general who was one of the founding members of the Delta Force and eventually became its commander. General Boykin was involved in many of the Army’s special forces missions, including the Iran rescue mission, Grenada, and Mogadishu. He is also a devout Christian and works at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. We reached out to General Boykin and asked if he would be willing to present his view on how the SEALS could be accommodated to the court, and he agreed.

In this brief, General Boykin discussed the value to the military of having our special-forces operators rooted in something greater than themselves with their faith in God and how this provides even more value to the military than being vaccinated. He weighed the pros and cons of forcing the SEALS to be vaccinated and attested that men in such great physical condition like the SEALS would not be likely to come down with a severe case of COVID. He also argued from the CDC’s own data that men in the SEALS’ condition are statistically more likely to be harmed by the vaccine than by COVID. Our hope is that General Boykin’s testimony can help the court come to the conclusion that failing to accommodate the SEALS will do more harm than good to the military.