{"id":109124,"date":"2025-04-09T17:26:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T22:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=109124"},"modified":"2025-04-09T17:26:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T22:26:18","slug":"109124","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=109124","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

DoD Courts Service Members Wrongfully Discharged for Not Getting the COVID Jab.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Pentagon has begun sending letters of apology to thousands of service members who were discharged from military service for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine. The Pentagon is also trying to assist these service members if they wish to return to active duty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey never should have had to leave military service, and the department is committed to assisting them in their return,\u201d Tim Hill, the Defense Department\u2019s acting deputy undersecretary of personnel and readiness, told reporters. He added that President Trump and Defense Secretary\u00a0Pete Hegseth<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>are \u201ceager to welcome back those who are impacted\u201d by the Pentagon\u2019s 2021 vaccine mandate.<\/p>\n

In August 2021, then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered the vaccine mandate, claiming it was critical in keeping service members ready to fight. It was so critical that the Pentagon dropped the rule in January 2023.<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Almost 9,000 service members refused vaccination and were dismissed from the armed forces. The effort to get them to reenlist includes telephone calls, emails, website information, and social media posts.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump issued an\u00a0executive order<\/a>\u00a0on January 27, reinstating service members discharged under the Pentagon’s COVID vaccine mandate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn spite of the scientific evidence, the Biden Administration discharged healthy service members\u2014many of whom had natural immunity and dedicated their entire lives to serving our country\u2014for refusing the COVID vaccine,\u201d a\u00a0fact sheet<\/a>\u00a0released with the executive order said. \u201cGovernment redress of these wrongful dismissals is overdue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Military Times:<\/a><\/p>\n

Service members who involuntarily separated would be granted the opportunity to receive back pay for the time they otherwise would\u2019ve been in the military, Hill said. It would include base pay, allowance for housing and subsistence and potentially medical benefits.\u00a0The back pay calculation would also factor in other forms of compensation a service member received while out of service, including salary and health care.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

These benefits would only apply to service members who seek to return under the new Trump administration guidelines and would not retroactively apply to those who had returned after the 2023 rescission, a number Hill estimated at under 80 service members.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s also something we can seek to address but there is not currently a mechanism,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The enlistment period would be either two or four years, and there are other administrative hurdles that an applicant would have to get over in order to rejoin.<\/p>\n

There’s also a question of back pay and the fact that most of the service members lost considerable pay because they didn’t get promotions and pay raises.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can the department make them whole so that they would stand financially in the same position they would\u2019ve stood in had they never been discharged?\u201d asked Hill.<\/p>\n

Returning service members would also be assessed for medical retention standards \u2014 a test to determine whether someone who\u2019s already been serving in the military is fit to continue \u2014 rather than traditional accession standards, which encompass a much higher level of scrutiny used to determine whether an individual prior to military experience is fit to join the military.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The Army has reenlisted more than 23 soldiers who were discharged for refusing the vaccine as of Monday<\/span>,\u00a0the AP reported<\/a>. None of the other services had completed reenlistments yet, but all are reaching out to former troops.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

According to Army spokesman Christopher Surridge, about 400 soldiers have inquired so far about the reenlistment program, the AP reported. Of those, about 100 are in the application process. The Army did not have estimates on how much it has given the soldiers in total back pay.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s a lot to sort out, and given the Biden administration’s reluctance to reach out to discharged service members, it’s not surprising that less than 700 service members have expressed any interest in reenlisting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DoD Courts Service Members Wrongfully Discharged for Not Getting the COVID Jab. The Pentagon has begun sending letters of apology to thousands of service members who were discharged from military service for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine. The Pentagon is also trying to assist these service members if they wish to return to active … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=109124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109125,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109124\/revisions\/109125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=109124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=109124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=109124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}