SecDef Hegseth: Military Reinstating 8,700 Wrongly Discharged Servicemembers

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday the Pentagon is actively working to reinstate 8,700 U.S. service members wrongly discharged for refusing a COVID-19 vaccine.

The defense secretary addressed U.S. Army War College families, students and staff on Wednesday, April 23 at the Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania.

“More than 8,700 service members were involuntarily separated for not taking an experimental COVID-19 vaccine,” the secretary said. “Others were more informally pushed out or decided to get out.” He proclaimed,

We are actively welcoming back those warriors of conscience. We’ve sent letters out, we’re seeking them out, we want them back. They never should have been forced out. We’re hoping they’ll come back quickly.

“Our Personnel and Readiness Department is working in real time to make that process more and more efficient, more and more direct, every single day,” he added.

CARLISLE, PENNSYLVANIA – APRIL 23: U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivers remarks to students, faculty and staff at the U.S. Army War college on April 23, 2025 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

You can watch a brief portion of his remarks below:

Just in: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announces the military is working to reinstate over 8,700 servicemembers who were discharged for refusing the experimental COVID vaccine. pic.twitter.com/0NSFhx8bdI

— The Calvin Coolidge Project (@TheCalvinCooli1) April 23, 2025

On Monday, January 27, President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order directing Defense Secretary Hegseth to “take all necessary action” to:

make reinstatement available to all members of the military (active and reserve) who were discharged solely for refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and who request to be reinstated;

enable those service members reinstated under this section to revert to their former rank and receive full back pay, benefits, bonus payments, or compensation; and

allow any service members who provide a written and sworn attestation that they voluntarily left the service or allowed their service to lapse according to appropriate procedures, rather than be vaccinated under the vaccine mandate, to return to service with no impact on their service status, rank, or pay.

On April 9, the Defense Department announced it was taking “significant steps” to reinstate the service members.

“Former service members who were involuntarily separated solely due to their COVID-19 vaccine status are now receiving letters of apology from the department in the mail, along with instructions on how they can pursue returning to service,” said Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Tim Dill.

The department is also trying to reach the service members through emails, phone calls, website resources and social media posts.

“This offer for reinstatement is going to be open for a year, so there’s plenty of time for former service members to express their interest in returning,” he added.

Service members have until April 1, 2026, to express interest.

Earlier this year, a Florida grand jury impaneled to investigate potential crimes and wrongdoing related to the COVID-19 pandemic found for healthy, young men, the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines likely did more harm than good:

For a sizable group of healthy young men, there is credible evidence that the risk of side effects from second doses of BNT162b2 or MRNA-1273 (Pfizer and Moderna’s shots) always outweighed their benefits, even at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Of course, the U.S. military is largely made up of that exact demographic – making the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate even more unwise.

The Department of Defense also almost universally ignored and denied service members’ requests for religious exemptions to the mandate. Across the five service branches, over 14,000 military members requested religious exemptions – only a handful were approved.

For these reasons, the Pentagon’s efforts to reinstate impacted service members are a great step in the right direction, remedying, at least in part, a tremendous wrong done during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Related articles and resources:

Pentagon Ends Paid Travel Expenses and Time Off for Abortions

Trump Ends ‘Transgenderism’ and DEI in the Military, Reinstates Wrongly Discharged Troops

Pete Hegseth Promises to Reinstate Unfairly Discharged Servicemembers With Back Pay

Photo from Getty Images.

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