The Vaccine Mandate Gutted the U.S. Armed Forces

The COVID pandemic lockdowns and mandates violated US Constitutional rights, and yet the public has largely moved on without any accountability of complicit elected leaders and rogue public health boards. People have returned to work and school, without any corrective safeguards to prevent future illegal suspension of representational government and illegitimate rule by unelected health spokespersons. These pseudoscience COVID policies devastated the economy, but the economy can recover. Illegal COVID mandates also destroyed the strength of the U.S. military. Without accountability of senior military leadership, our national defense will continue to erode due to historic losses in retention and recruitment. The current NDAA FY25 includes a new draft.

National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2023

In NDAA 2023, Congress ended the COVID vaccine mandate in the military, and the public thought this political theater restored our military. In January 2023, the Department of Defense rescinded the COVID vaccine mandate which was effective from August 2021 to January 2023. In that timeframe, thousands of service members voluntarily left the military to avoid vaccine coercion, punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and threat of court martial with less-than-honorable discharges to stigmatize them forever in the civilian sector and with loss of benefits as veterans.

The media reported 8,600 involuntary separations from the military for COVID vaccine refusal. These service members lost rank, pay, training needed for advancement, promotions, leadership positions, and some lost retirement pensions with 19 years of the required 20 years of service. Unvaccinated service members also endured months of a malpractice form of “quarantine” or isolation of healthy people, loss of leave, denial of access to dining facilities and gyms, and some lost access to their job areas. Some of the service members who were forced out left with pregnant wives without medical insurance and special needs children without benefits. Cadets at academies who were separated for refusing an experimental drug are being billed up to $200,000 as recoupment of their costs, while trying to restart their lives at universities.

The result is a historic loss in retention and recruitment. Military members tend to be multigenerational, and these veterans will no longer recommend military service to their children and relatives.

TROOP Act Bill of February 2023

Republicans made a gesture for reinstatement of service members who were discharged for COVID vaccine refusal. The Troop Return Of Overdue Payment Act or TROOP Act drafted policy for reinstatement and backpay. However, this bill was never signed into law, and it was merely more political theater for the public to believe that service members were being restored.

Eight months later in October 2023, CNN reported that only 43 service members of the 8,000 discharged rejoined the military.  It is simply that victims, both voluntary and involuntary separations, do not want to serve under abusers in the current Chain of Command who have not been held accountable for unlawful orders during the mandate.

In 2023, the Army, Navy, and Air Force all missed their recruiting goals by thousands of people. The Army has missed its recruiting goals for the past three years, falling short 15,000 of the 60,000 recruitment goal for soldiers in 2023. The Army has started a Future Soldier Preparatory Course which attempts to train “delayed recruits” who do not qualify for the academic and body fat requirements of Basic Training. The Navy, short 22,000 sailors, is now enlisting recruits without a high school diploma or GED. The Air Force, short 3,000 airmen in 2023, increased the age of enlistment to 42. The Department of Defense (DoD) also implemented a new controversial program to fast-track immigrants to citizens for enlistment in the military. Across the branches, initiatives which lower standards for recruits have been implemented to overcome recruitment shortfalls, such as relaxing tattoo restrictions and allowing recruits who have prior positive drug tests.

National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025

The NDAA for 2025 passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. This bill has some good provisions such as dismantling DEI in favor of merit-based programs and improvements in pay, housing, and healthcare.

There are also some misguided priorities in the bill such as diverting $1 billion annually for in vitro fertilization procedures, which would require $1 billion in cuts in other areas of medical care for service members and further degrades health readiness of the force.

At the same time, the Pentagon announced a $500 million public-private contract (taxpayer funded) within DoD to feed service members experimental lab grown meat “to reduce the CO2 footprint of food production.” The Free Beacon reported, “Critics of the DoD’s partnership with BioMADE say that U.S. troops should not be used as test subjects for lab-grown meat products that are still in their experimental phase.” Lab-grown meat uses more resources than beef. According to Derrick Risner, a member of UC Davis’s Department of Food Science and Technology, “If this product continues to be produced using the ‘pharma’ approach, it’s going to be worse for the environment and more expensive than conventional beef production.”

The NDAA also established a new drone force in the military, and the public should have input on how those drones will be used in civilian populations.

The NDAA has many amendments and versions in the drafting process this session, but it fails again to restore service members for the illegal COVID vaccine mandates. Doe v. Rumsfeld (2003) ruled that DoD cannot mandate an experimental drug in the context of the anthrax vaccine, which was not FDA approved. The Emergency Use Authorized (EUA) COVID vaccines were experimental, and clearly labeled as EUA. The FDA-approved versions of COVID vaccines were never manufactured. Service members were within their rights to refuse an EUA drug (as well as civilians). Service members were also denied religious accommodations per their rights, with DoD subverting the legal accommodation process subverted with a program of blanket denials of 99% of requests and appeals.

But by far, the most alarming section in the House version of NDAA is the recruitment section which expands the draft for all males from age 18 to 26, an increase from age 24. The new provision raises more concern about foreigners serving in the U.S. military with language stating, “every male citizen of the United States, and every other male person residing in the United States.” Historically, hiring foreigners or conscripts for defense has been the downfall of nations. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-PA, says her proposed new draft amendment is “equitable.”

It is unlikely that some of the House provisions in the NDAA will pass in the Senate version of the NDAA. Fox News reported “Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., blasted the bill on Friday afternoon over the inclusion of amendments curbing funding for abortion, transgender medical care, and diversity efforts.”

Conclusion

Prior to the NDAA 2023, which removed the COVID vaccine mandate in the military, lawsuits were advancing which challenged DoD’s illegal mandate (unlawful order) of an experimental drug and challenged that the religious accommodation process had been systematically denied (due process violation). When DoD removed the mandate (after 90% of the force was vaccinated), service members in these lawsuits for refusal lost legal standing, and their cases became moot. While the public celebrated the removal of the mandate, service members lost their ability to petition the courts for redress of harms. It is now the responsibility of the public to demand legislation to restore service members, for both voluntary and involuntary separations, and to hold Congressional hearings of senior leadership in DoD for an unlawful order with devastating effects which have weakened the U.S. military. DoD’s illegal COVID mandate purged the U.S. military of thousands of service members who were loyal to their oath to defend the Constitution and loyal to their duty to refuse unlawful orders. Those experienced and highly trained patriots have been discarded as expendable personnel, and now stand to be replaced by foreigners who are not loyal to the U.S. Constitution. Contact your elected federal representatives for amendments to the NDAA.