Every member of the Washington National Guard has been offered the opportunity to get a COVID-19 vaccine, but just 40% of the force has accepted it, according to a spokesperson for the guard.

As of March 5, all 8,000 Washington guard troops have been offered the vaccine, according to public affairs director Joseph Siemandel.

During a COVID-19 media roundtable with National Guard leaders from five states, Maj. Gen. Bret Daugherty, adjutant general of the Washington guard, said he’d love to encourage service members to take the vaccine but leaders are prohibited from providing anything other than education.

“We just try to educate people on the potential benefits of getting the vaccine,” Daugherty said. “But I can’t go beyond that to the point where I would appear to be having undue command influence and telling people to get vaccinated because it’s not it’s not a requirement yet.”

Federal law prohibits the military from requiring service members to take any vaccine that isn’t fully licensed by the Food and Drug Administration. The three COVID-19 vaccines available in the U.S. — Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — were approved on “emergency use authorizations,” so no service member is required to take one and won’t be punished if they decline to take one.

The Washington National Guard has provided support to six mass vaccinations across Washington state and has administered over 80,000 vaccinations in the state so far, according to Daugherty.

In February, Air National Guard director Lt. Gen. Michael Loh told Air Force Magazine he’s heard many troops don’t feel comfortable getting the vaccine before loved ones who are more vulnerable to serious illness.

“I don’t know if they actually denied it, or they just said, ‘No, I’ll pass,’” Loh said. “And I say that because, when you’re dealing with a young, healthy population, and they’re dealing with parents and grandparents that can’t get the vaccine right now, there’s a lot of members that go, ‘Hey, I know I am not at the biggest risk, and so use it for those that are at the higher risk.’ So, I can’t tell you how many would have actually … said, ‘Hey, … I don’t believe in vaccines, I believe in letting the body do its own thing.’”

The National Guard Bureau is not tracking how many troops have declined to take a vaccine on a national level, according to National Guard Bureau Chief Army Gen. Daniel Hokanson.

While the National Guard can’t force troops to get a COVID-19 vaccine, Hokanson said, it is engaged in educational initiatives to keep personnel informed about vaccinations.

The National Guard Bureau also is using fill-in-the-blank-style placards for people to take selfies with while or after they get vaccinated in the hopes that it will help encourage others to do the same, National Guard Bureau spokesperson Tracy O’Grady-Walsh said.

“We’ve found that that has really gained a lot of community support ‘cause they want to be there for each other, they wanna be in this together,” she said.

The Department of Defense would not provide information on how many active-duty service members have been vaccinated on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, but Col. Luke Mease, chief of preventative medicine at Madigan Army Medical Center, said over 15,000 eligible TRICARE patients — including active duty service members and their dependents, Madigan healthcare workers and emergency personnel — have been vaccinated at the American Lake Conference Center on JBLM.

Mease said when JBLM first started offering the vaccine in December, leaders focused on using subject matter experts to answer questions about the shots.

“Now, we’re working on more peer-to-peer messaging because, for the younger soldiers, subject matter only goes so far,” Mease said. “But if I know that all my buddies got the vaccine and they’re OK, maybe I’ll take it.”