Religious exemptions are the most plausible legal argument so it isn’t surprising that’s what will be filed - I should have known that was the alleged reason though, I responded hastily to the claim the request to get vaccinated is “benign” (it isn’t.)

It would be sad to consider service-members making a fraudulent-claim to disobey orders.

I mean, if they sincerely believed that they were created by a God and intended to follow God's laws, forcing them to refuse orders that they'd otherwise have complied with, then that'd be one thing. But if they're merely insubordinate and lying because they know the law wouldn't agree with them, then that'd seem different.

Anyway, you're right that it'ld seem like an over-statement to call the vaccines "benign" in an absolute sense. Strange to think of service-members as being afraid of potential risks of that magnitude, though, if they'd voluntarily joined to serve in the armed-forces.

I guess part of me kinda hopes that they're sincerely religious, as the alternative would seem distasteful. However, if they're just lying, then I suppose I'd speculate that they're making decisions based on political-ideology rather than a true understanding of the issues involved. For example, I'd be skeptical that most of them had even read a single academic-article on vaccines, much less be equipped to understand its contents.

I'd be surprised if religious exemptions fly as far as people would think. How many vaccines have they had up until that point? Hell, how many did they have in the first two weeks of service. Lying about what makes this one different doesn't strike me as a winning move.

religious reasons are not philosophical reasons.

Really? Maybe that's a philosophical discussion in itself but how could they be anything else?

Philosophical in the broad sense includes practically everything: religion, mathematics, the sciences (as since it is an interpretation of the senses, coupled with philosophical assumptions such as "the scientific method likely leads to truth").

But what I meant here is philosophy in the narrow sense. Religion includes revaluation, a discussion of theology. (again, not to say that philosophy and theology don't interact: they do. see philosophical theology).