How Anthrax Causes Early Retirement

Since 1997, when the military decided to inoculate each of its 2.4 million enlisted men and women against the dreaded anthrax virus, the program has given the Pentagon headache upon headache. The latest came Friday with the discharge of Air Force major Sonnie Bates, who first drew headlines in February for becoming the highest-ranking military man to face court-martial for refusing to take the vaccine. So far roughly 300 of our boys and girls in uniform have been punished for refusing the shot, but Bates's story is probably the most compelling. Here's a guy who devoted nearly two decades to the defense of his country, rose to the rank of major and had his livelihood cut off because he refused to accept an injection with possible harmful side effects that's used to battle a disease he'll probably never be exposed to.

Then again, all the hubbub may be little more than bad p.r. Despite an embarrassing congressional investigation in February which concluded that the Pentagon irresponsibly rushed into requiring the vaccine, TIME Pentagon correspondent Mark Thompson notes that the program hasn't hurt recruitment. "Plainly it's something people think about," he said, referring to soldiers' fears of the vaccine. "But it really hasn't caught fire yet as a cause célèbre. The Pentagon's position is still that nobody's gotten really sick because of it, and the truth is that the numbers show that very few people are impacted at all by the vaccine."

The numbers, actually, are hard to come by. The Pentagon says that roughly 100 soldiers have experienced slight side effects. Congress puts the number at over 400. Some soldiers' rights groups put the figure in the thousands. No matter how you slice it, considering that more than a half million soldiers have been inoculated, the percentage who report side effects is fairly small. Still, the horror stories have become folklore in the boot camps, and, orders or no orders, it's hard to blame someone for not wanting one of the world's most dreaded infectious diseases introduced into their system.