These Servicemembers Punished For Refusing The COVID Jab Are Counting On Hegseth To Make Things Right
Veterans and current members of the U.S. military who refused to submit to the once-mandatory Covid shot are hurt, some say “morally injured,” by the mandate’s lingering consequences. They hope the Department of Defense, and its likely new Secretary Pete Hegseth, will restore a culture that respects religious freedom within the ranks.
During his Tuesday confirmation hearing, Hegseth showed he understands how the military culture has changed.
“… I’d been identified as an extremist, as someone unworthy of guarding the inauguration of an incoming American president,” Hegseth said Tuesday. “And if that’s happening to me … how many other men and women? How many other patriots? How many other people of conscience? We haven’t even talked about Covid, and the tens of thousands of service members who were kicked out because of an experimental vaccine. In President Trump’s Defense Department, they will be apologized to. They will be reinstated, reinstituted with pay and rank. Things like focusing on extremism … have created a climate inside our ranks that feel political, when it hasn’t ever been political.”
Listen to this. Pete Hegseth said that military members who were removed for not taking the covid vaccine will get reinstated and back pay.
Confirm Pete now! pic.twitter.com/katRr6QKPw
— Sassafrass84 (@Sassafrass_84) January 14, 2025
In a decision that weakened the military and destroyed thousands of careers, President Joe Biden’s secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, announced in August 2021 that the Covid shot would be mandatory. The move made many bristle for various reasons. Some already had Covid and they believed they did not need a so-called vaccine. The shot was developed through the cell line of aborted baby tissue, a reason the faithful had religious objections.
“The people who were most affected were those midway through their career that were at a point where, whether it’s because they felt religiously called to this by God, or they spiritually felt connected to the values and rituals and the life that the military provided them, they were forced to choose between their faith and conscience or the military,” Current U.S. Navy Chaplain Jonathan Shour, who did not take the shot, told The Federalist. “They’ve been injured morally, spiritually perhaps even, if you look at it that way. It’s hard to recover from, but not impossible. And what would hopefully happen under future leadership is an acknowledgement that the military didn’t live up to the moral and ethical values that it espouses on paper.” (Read more from “These Servicemembers Punished For Refusing The Covid Jab Are Counting On Hegseth To Make Things Right” HERE)
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr
