ABERDEEN, Maryland (LifeSiteNews) – The former headquarters company commander at the Army Public Health Center (APHC) is facing court martial starting this week for allegedly violating the U.S. military’s COVID-19 protocols at Aberdeen Proving Ground.
WBFF reports that the trial for 1st Lieutenant Mark Bashaw begins Friday over allegations that he failed to wear a mask indoors at the base, to which he reported and where he remained despite not submitting to a COVID-19 test.
The Army Times adds that he specifically faces charges of “failure to obey lawful orders.” Bashaw had reportedly been ordered to telework instead of show up in person, because he is unvaccinated. Army spokeswoman Col. Cathy Wilkinson confirmed the lieutenant is the first U.S. service member to be court-martialed for such acts, rather than merely disciplined.
According to an overview of the case by Army veterans Pam Long and Alec Zeck, Bashaw says he “started to see the numbers and deaths climb” upon reviewing the data for the COVID-19 vaccines from the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). “I knew something was wrong.”
He sought to have APHC update its COVID Risk Communication Strategy for Mandatory Vaccination to acknowledge the data, as well as for consideration of potential COVID therapeutics such as hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), ivermectin (IVM), zinc, vitamin D, and vitamin C, but was rebuffed.
In November 2021, Bashaw was ordered to submit to twice-weekly COVID testing while his religious accommodation to the vaccine mandate was pending. He filed an Article 138 complaint, arguing that “these were unlawful orders, violations of his privacy and discrimination based on his request for religious accommodation,” but it was rejected.
This was when he was ordered to work remotely, “received negative counseling forms, had his security badge revoked and his security clearance suspended,” Long and Zeck write. “He was restricted from accessing his place of duty and had his records flagged (barring his promotion to captain in December).”
Available facts support the lieutenant’s opposition to establishment COVID protocols.
Masking has been largely ineffective at limiting the spread of the virus, as shown by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention’s own September 2020 acknowledgement that masks cannot be counted on to keep out COVID when spending 15 minutes or longer within six feet of someone, and a May 2020 study published by CDC’s peer-reviewed journal Emerging Infectious Diseases that “did not find evidence that surgical-type face masks are effective in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza transmission, either when worn by infected persons (source control) or by persons in the general community to reduce their susceptibility.”
Last May, another study found that, though mandates effectively increased mask use, that usage did not yield the expected benefits. “Mask mandates and use (were) not associated with lower SARS-CoV-2 spread among U.S. states” from March 2020 to March 2021. In fact, the researchers found the results to be a net negative, with masks increasing “dehydration … headaches and sweating and decreas[ing] cognitive precision,” and interfering with communication, as well as impairing social learning among children.
In late February, during a COVID-19 vaccine hearing held by U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), attorney Thomas Renz presented medical billing data from the Pentagon’s Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) showing that 2021 saw drastic spikes in a variety of diagnoses for serious medical issues over the previous five-year average, including hypertension (2,181%), neurological disorders (1,048%), multiple sclerosis (680%), Guillain-Barre syndrome (551%), breast cancer, 487%), female infertility (472%), pulmonary embolism (468%), migraines (452%), ovarian dysfunction (437%), testicular cancer (369%), and tachycardia (302%).
In a statement to left-wing “fact-checking” outlet PolitiFact, the Defense Health Agency’s Armed Forces Surveillance Division spokesperson Peter Graves confirmed the existence of the records but claimed that a conveniently-timed “data corruption” glitch made the pre-2021 numbers appear far lower than the actual numbers of cases for those years, which PolitiFact took at face value.
Whatever the impending court martial holds, Bashaw is relying on his faith to help him through it.
“Jesus Christ allows me to walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” he wrote in his affidavit. “On 16 December 2021, President Joe Biden stated, ‘For the unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe death and illness.’ Officially, we are currently three days into spring, and I am still alive. Glory to God. God Bless and Much Love.”