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.
“They never should have had to leave military service, and the department is committed to assisting them in their return,” Tim Hill, the Defense Department’s acting deputy undersecretary of personnel and readiness, told reporters. He added that President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are “eager to welcome back those who are impacted” by the Pentagon’s 2021 vaccine mandate.
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.
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.
Donald Trump issued an executive order on January 27, reinstating service members discharged under the Pentagon’s COVID vaccine mandate.
“In spite of the scientific evidence, the Biden Administration discharged healthy service members—many of whom had natural immunity and dedicated their entire lives to serving our country—for refusing the COVID vaccine,” a fact sheet released with the executive order said. “Government redress of these wrongful dismissals is overdue.”
Military Times:
Service members who involuntarily separated would be granted the opportunity to receive back pay for the time they otherwise would’ve been in the military, Hill said. It would include base pay, allowance for housing and subsistence and potentially medical benefits. The back pay calculation would also factor in other forms of compensation a service member received while out of service, including salary and health care.
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.
“It’s also something we can seek to address but there is not currently a mechanism,” he said.
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.
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.
“How can the department make them whole so that they would stand financially in the same position they would’ve stood in had they never been discharged?” asked Hill.
Returning service members would also be assessed for medical retention standards — a test to determine whether someone who’s already been serving in the military is fit to continue — 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.
The Army has reenlisted more than 23 soldiers who were discharged for refusing the vaccine as of Monday, the AP reported. None of the other services had completed reenlistments yet, but all are reaching out to former troops.
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.
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.
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