The Pentagon Has Turned into a Covid Panic Room

A s my son’s school continues with in-person instruction, the federal government, at the direction of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), is using the latest Covid scare as an excuse to waste even more taxpayer funds and remains largely remote. The Department of Defense and the Pentagon dutifully comply with this nonsense. Once upon a time, decreased mask-wearing was held out as a reward for increased vaccination, but vaccination rates have increased while masks remain mandatory virtually everywhere within the Department. And now, on top of this, the DoD and the Pentagon have gone to what is called Health Protection Condition level Charlie (HPCON C). These protocols severely restrict the number of in-office personnel, as well as facility use. A fuller examination of these new policies shows that we have completely lost any sense of risk assessment; our nation and national security are suffering for it.

What exactly is HPCON C? Well, here are just some of the most ridiculous measures put in place at the Pentagon and our overflow offices as a result of these protocols (on top of the virtually universal indoor masking already enforced):

• Organizations are expected to maintain occupancy rates at less than 25 percent of normal occupancy
• The Pentagon Athletic Center (PAC) will open to active-duty military and Pentagon Force Protection Agency first responders only. All annexes will be closed. The Mark Center and Polk Building athletic centers will be closed
• The 9/11 Memorial will also remain closed with the exception of pre-approved activities
• Promotion and retirement ceremonies indoors should be discouraged or deferred when possible
• Food court and concession options remain available with no options for indoor seating

While this list is quite transparently foolish, I would like to expand on exactly how foolish these measures are. Just for the sake of argument, let’s assume these measures will actually cut down on community spread. Would they be worth it? What are the costs of implementing them? Of course, these questions are not allowed to be asked; the Pentagon is instead operating by the absurd metric of “if it saves just one life.”

But there’s plenty of reason to believe the cost of these policies outweigh even hypothetical benefits. As just one example, let’s consider the effect of remote work on handling classified material. Most people have never worked in a “classified setting” or on “classified systems.” It’s worth clarifying that you cannot just casually access classified material at home. While some do have limited access to it in home settings, it is heavily restricted. And the majority of the workforce at the Pentagon do not have ready access at home anyway.

While home work might suffice for Google or other tech-centered businesses, we’re talking about the Pentagon here. Breaking my workload out, I spend about 20 percent of my time on a “Secret” level system, about 75 percent on a “Top Secret” level system, and maybe 5 percent of my time on an “unclassified” system. That is, only about 5 percent of my work can actually be done remotely.

While my personal example is an anecdote, I am in a good position to tell you that a large portion of my peers are in similar circumstances. Our “telework” days are nothing more than sitting and staring at our unclassified emails, wondering and thinking about all the work we actually have to do when we get a chance to physically go into the office. I cannot even write those thoughts down to ensure I actually get to them all when I am in the office because I cannot store classified information at home or transport it to and from work.

It is worth pointing out that even at the Pentagon, the vast majority of the military are 49 and younger. Also, as part of continued military service, we are routinely screened for risk factors that make Covid more potentially dangerous. Hence we in the military largely do not possess these factors. Even excluding the fact that military members lack additional risk factors, simply by age alone our risk of dying from or having a serious reaction to Covid is exceptionally low.

The risk of Covid killing or seriously affecting the military members serving in an office setting at the Pentagon is statically insignificant. Driving out to your average field problem in a typical military setting carries more risk. That is to say, Covid is effectively no risk at all. Now, I do have a friend who unfortunately did die in a HUMVEE accident. But the military’s response to that was not to ban all tactical-vehicle movement or to reduce it to less than 25 percent.

The reason military service is regarded so highly (though this respect is being eroded every day) is that people realize it’s inherently dangerous, even in peacetime during training. But now we are cowering in our homes “teleworking” because an office setting is supposedly too dangerous to expose soldiers to. To call limiting in-office personnel to less than 25 percent “nonsense” is to devalue the word. Perhaps “insanity” is a better descriptor. I can definitively tell you that working at the Pentagon in an office setting is demonstratively the least dangerous thing I have ever done in my military career.

The other aspects of these protocols are foolish as well. Consider, for example, that part of military life is also physical fitness. And by all accounts, being fit reduces your risk of serious complications from Covid. Thus, restricting the Pentagon main gym and closing the annex gyms at our overflow offices strikes me as counterproductive. (By the way, those who can use the gym must do so masked, of course.)

Sure, the closure of the Pentagon’s 9/11 Memorial might not be “counterproductive,” in the sense that it won’t affect military readiness. But we can still marvel at the sheer stupidity of this decision. For those who have not been, the Memorial is a 100 percent outdoor venue with plenty of room to “social distance.” The idea that the Memorial needs to be closed for safety reasons boggles the mind.

Also mind-boggling, and egregious, is the severe restriction of promotion and retirement ceremonies. The latter are once-in-a-lifetime events, essential in the career of military servicemembers. Retirement, in particular, holds great significance: You only retire from active service once, and you won’t get a second shot at closure for 20-plus years of your life. Such ceremonies are particularly helpful for the many veterans who have great difficulty transitioning from service, especially those who have spent their entire adult lives in the military. We should care far more about giving such people a proper send-off than about whether they contract what would in all likelihood be a mild illness (if they even get it). Meanwhile, on average, there are 17.2 veteran suicides a day. But I am supposed to be more concerned about Covid than about properly sending off veterans into civilian life?

Finally, a word about the Pentagon food court, which has once again removed tables and chairs. Those who have never been to the Pentagon should know that the main food court seating area is as large as any mall I have ever been in. It also has an exceptionally high ceiling, effectively making it an open-air space, and is well-ventilated. So, even though it is an area with plenty of room to “social distance,” it is supposedly too dangerous for Pentagon employees and visitors to eat there. Instead, it is much safer to go back to a cubical farm to eat lunch. Ridiculous.

All of these policies show how risk-averse the military has become. We realize school children should be back in school, but continue to believe that it is too dangerous for military members to be back at work full-time in an office setting. At what point do we accept that we have completely politicized this latest round of Covid nonsense and are wasting your taxpayer dollars to pay people to stay home?

It would be bad enough if it were IRS officials. But the Department of Defense? Surely our leaders should stand up and say, “No, we need to stay open. The risk to our nation is much greater than the risk to the force.” Not to mention that it is the job of the military to take reasonable risks to ensure combat readiness, and, in Covid’s case, it is statistically speaking not a risk at all. On the other hand, if, God forbid, the U.S. faced a major military threat tomorrow, would these protocols help us face it down, or would they obstruct us? Based on what I’ve discussed here, the answer should be clear. So it should also be clear what should be done with these protocols.