(LifeSiteNews) –– President Donald Trump signed an executive order (EO) to reinstate service men and women who were forced during the Biden administration to leave military service after their requests for exemptions from the untested COVID-19 vaccine jab were denied.
Those who were discharged “solely for refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine” are to be “reinstated under this section to revert to their former rank and receive full back pay, benefits, bonus payments, or compensation.”
“The vaccine mandate was an unfair, overbroad, and completely unnecessary burden on our service members,” declares the order signed by President Trump on Monday.
“Further, the military unjustly discharged those who refused the vaccine, regardless of the years of service given to our Nation, after failing to grant many of them an exemption that they should have received,” continues the EO, adding, “Federal Government redress of any wrongful dismissals is overdue.”
The EO made good on the promise Trump made as a candidate and during his inaugural address.
The Trump White House noted earlier that “From 2021 to 2023, the Biden Administration and former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin discharged over 8,000 troops solely due to their COVID-19 vaccination status. After the vaccine mandate was repealed in 2023, only 43 of the more than the 8,000 troops dismissed elected to return to service under the Biden Administration and Secretary Austin.”
“During the worst recruitment crisis in the fifty-year history of the all-volunteer force, Joe Biden kicked troops from our military over an illegal mandate,” Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana told the New York Post. “Thank you, President Trump, for righting this wrong and standing with our warfighters.”
“This is a crucial first step in addressing the significant damage caused by the COVID vaccine mandate, but more action is needed,” wrote former Green Beret Capt. John Frankman on X.
“In addition to the 8600 kicked out, TENS OF THOUSANDS OF OTHERS (such as myself) were forced out by negative repercussions from the mandate,” Frankman continued. “Further, many unvaccinated who remained in the military STILL suffered irreversible career harm. True recovery needs to be comprehensive and MUST involve accountability for the leaders who pushed this unlawful mandate.”
“Grateful for President Trump for his executive order reinstating service members kicked out by the COVID VAX mandate,” the former Green Beret captain wrote in a subsequent post.
There is still work to be done. True resolution requires repairing career harms for both those who left & those who stayed in. There also MUST be accountability as this was an ILLEGAL ORDER, not just some overreach or abuse of power.
I’m grateful for the President’s actions & look forward to seeing future steps he & Pete Hegseth take on this issue.
Dave Hamski, a former U.S. Army captain and airborne company commander who was forced out, said that the EO was “not yet a win’ and called for a commission to identify tens of thousands more adversely affected by the Biden administration’s COVID policies, according to a report by the New York Post.
“Nearly 90,000 service members, not just the 8,600 involuntarily separated, had their careers adversely impacted by the vaccine mandates,” Hamski told the Post.
“I publicly stated a year after exiting the army that I will serve this nation again, whether in uniform or not,” Hamski said. “The question is whether that will be to secure accountability or after it has been administered. I prefer the later.”
“Trump giving back pay to Service Members discharged for refusing the dead-baby vaxx is perhaps the most astounding thing he has yet done,” said conservative Christian author and podcast host Eric Metaxas.
“‘God promises to ‘restore what the locusts have eaten … ’” he explained. “Trump is God’s vessel in doing this truly astonishing thing.”
Trump giving backpay to Service Members discharged for refusing the dead-baby vaxx is perhaps the most astounding thing he has yet done. God promises to “restore what the locusts have eaten…” Trump is God’s vessel in doing this truly astonishing thing. https://t.co/sBDV7OKL2d
— Eric Metaxas (@ericmetaxas) January 27, 2025