The refusal of the Supreme Court to grant to religious healthcare workers in Maine an exemption from the state’s Covid vaccine mandate has me thinking of Glenn M. Shumway. When I met him, he was a private first class in the United States Army in Vietnam and I was a combat reporter for Pacific Stars & Stripes.

In III Corps north of Saigon, I began to hear other GIs speak of Private Shumway in awe. It seems that Private Shumway was unwilling to carry a weapon because of his fervent Christianity. So he became a medic. When the private was dropped into the thick of battle to care for his fellow GIs, it was with nothing closer to a weapon than a syringe.

In the engagement that had GIs whispering about him, he’d gone out with a medevac from Fire Support Base Buttons near Song Be. It was a “mayday” call to rescue any survivors from a downed chopper. His own aircraft, I wrote, had already lowered him to the jungle floor when it took enemy fire.

On the ground, Private First Class Shumway could hear the enemy weapons. “Then came one of those split-second decisions,” he said. “You really can’t attribute it to goodness or anything.” He either had to run for the hoist which would have taken 30 seconds, or wave his own helicopter away.

So Private Shumway waved them out. His pilot never saw him wave, but had to pull away anyhow, because of the enemy fire. That’s when Private Shumway, age 20, found himself lying on the jungle floor, surrounded by the enemy. “Not for a second” did he wish he had a weapon.

Ants were crawling over his hands, he told me, sweat was pouring off his brow and fogging his glasses, and a helicopter was burning less than 10 yards away. Bamboo on fire was “going pop pop pop,” and the Baptist medic was “praying that Jesus Christ’s will be done.”

I’ve written about this encounter several times. It fills me with admiration not only for Private Shumway but also for the United States Army. One would think, after all, that if ever there were an occasion where the government could override religious objections, it would be amid the life-and-death exigencies of live combat.

Yet the Army found a way to accommodate the religious conscience of this GI and those like him. The officers who managed that policy in the thick of battle, the dispatch in Stripes records, were the commander of the medevac chopper, Warrant Officer Richard Tanner, and the pilot, Captain Harry Wisdom.

WO Tanner told us that it was a “terrifying experience.” As they were about to lower Private Shumway into the firefight, WO Tanner had told the medic to take an M16, but Private Shumway declined. When enemy fire started coming up, they had to fly to a nearby landing zone to check their aircraft for damage. Then they returned for Private Shumway.

Stripes ran out the story under a headline that said, “Trapped Pacifist GI Sticks to His ‘Guns.’”

Here’s the question: If the Army and two officers in a desperate fight can find it within themselves to accommodate the Christian conscience of this private, what in the world is the matter with the state of Maine — and the Supreme Court?

Maine might argue that there’s a risk letting unvaccinated healthcare workers interact with patients. No bigger a risk, we’d warrant, than letting an unarmed medic into combat.

Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justices Thomas and Alito, dissented from the court’s refusal to grant an interim injunction to protect the religious doctors in Maine. Justice Gorsuch reported that “many other States have adopted religious exemptions.”

Yet in Maine, Justice Gorsuch noted, healthcare givers “who have served on the front line of a pandemic for the last 18 months are now being fired and their practices shuttered. All for adhering to their constitutionally protected religious beliefs.” The Army wouldn’t have let that happen.