The vast majority of U.S. Army soldiers have been vaccinated against COVID-19. The small percentage who have refused will be discharged soon, the Army announced Wednesday.

“Army readiness depends on Soldiers who are prepared to train, deploy, fight and win our nation’s wars,” said Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth in a statement. “Unvaccinated Soldiers present risk to the force and jeopardize readiness. We will begin involuntary separation proceedings for Soldiers who refuse the vaccine order and are not pending a final decision on an exemption.”

As of Jan. 26, the Army said that 96% of active troops were fully vaccinated, and 97% had at least one dose. Vaccination rates in the Army Reserve were lower, at 79% fully vaccinated and 83% with at least one dose. At the time, 3,350 people had refused to be vaccinated, and 3,073 had gotten official reprimands. Soldiers requesting medical or religious exemptions—5,870 of them—were getting a temporary exemption while those requests are reviewed. If and when those requests are denied, service members will have seven days to get their first shot.

Soldiers facing involuntary separation might also lose money: “Service members separated due to refusal of the COVID-19 vaccination order will not be eligible for involuntary separation pay and may be subject to recoupment of any unearned special or incentive pays.”

Discharges for vaccination refusal “will immediately begin”; previously, in addition to the 3,073 written reprimands, “Army commanders have relieved a total of six regular Army leaders, including two battalion commanders.”

It’s important to highlight the 96% of active troops who have been vaccinated, in line with the results in other organizations that have required COVID-19 vaccination. But the 3,350 people who have refused and, likely, a significant majority of the 5,870 who have received temporary exemptions have to be viewed in a different context from refusers in other settings. That’s because the military has a long, strong history of requiring vaccination, starting with George Washington’s smallpox inoculation campaign in 1777. Army recruits these days are expected to have a list of vaccinations, and during boot camp, recruits have long gotten the "peanut butter shot,“ so called for the thickness of the bicillin being painfully injected into a butt cheek.

“I’ve gotten all these other vaccinations, but this one specific one is worth leaving the Army for” is … a position people are taking, but it’s not one that makes any sense. Or it wouldn’t, if the right-wing media hadn’t turned this into the test of Republican identity. Given that, it’s actually remarkable how similar the percentage of people in the Army refusing vaccination is to the percentage of people refusing vaccination at, say, United Airlines.

But just wait. Donald Trump is probably about to announce that, if elected in 2024, he would reinstate soldiers who refused the vaccine—and make them all generals on top of it.