WASHINGTON, D.C. (New York Post) — President Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Monday to reinstate thousands of US service members who were discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine, a White House official told The Post.
Trump, 78, is preparing to make good on a 2024 campaign promise by bringing back more than 8,000 members of the US military, restoring them to their previous rank and providing back pay and full benefits.
The order will cover active-duty or reserve service members who were kicked out for not taking the COVID jab mandated by the Biden administration between 2021 and 2023.
Just 43 of the roughly 8,000 removed returned to their service branch after the Biden administration scuppered the mandate, according to the White House.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made the same pledge during his confirmation hearings earlier this month, saying that he stood by the president’s promise that each discharged troop “will receive an apology, back pay and rank that they lost.”
Hegseth also acknowledged the reinstatement of troops pushed out because of COVID mandates while speaking with reporters outside the Pentagon Monday morning.
Samuel Sigoloff — an Arizona doctor and former Army major who left the service due to the mandate and wrote medical exemptions to the mandate for troops in his care — said the executive order was welcome news, but that the damage has already been done in eroding his faith in the services.
“It may not restore my trust in the military, but this kind of mak[ing] people whole again, as best that can be done, will help [recruit] future generations to use the military as a way … to help the country again,” he told The Post.
“But if the country just overlooks this, I think it would be very difficult for future generations to go, ‘Well, look, yeah, they mess up sometimes, but they at least make it right,’ because if they don’t make it right, then you can’t say that.”
While Sigoloff said he still would not want his son or daughter to serve in the military after his experience, Republican lawmakers are hopeful that the executive order will help inspire more Americans to join up, with recent recruitment numbers slipping to pre-World War II levels.
“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,” Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) told The Post. “Thank you President Trump for righting this wrong and standing with our warfighters.”
Former Green Beret Capt. John Frankman, who also chose to let his contract expire rather than comply with the vaccine mandate, called the executive order “a crucial first step in addressing the significant damage caused by the COVID vaccine mandate.”
“Thousands were forced out due to the mandate, and many unvaccinated service members who remained still face lasting career setbacks,” said Franklin, who insisted that “more action is needed.”
“True recovery requires addressing the full scope of the harm and holding leaders accountable for enforcing this unlawful mandate,” he said.
Houston-area attorney Sean Timmons, who has represented multiple veterans affected by Biden’s mandate, including Sigoloff, said that even though the requirement was later revoked, Trump’s executive order was needed to “make whole” the troops who were forced out.
“The [2023] National Defense Authorization Act [that repealed the mandate] didn’t really address remediation of individuals’ careers, [instead] inviting people to reapply to seek relief with the board of corrections — which is a very bureaucratic process, it takes years,” he told The Post. “So really, you put everybody in this gray, dark hole to get relief, like, ‘OK, take a number and wait.’
“The executive order is about actually implementing redress promptly and effectively, with authority that says people need to be made whole quickly — quite different than the previous grants of relief, which were, for lack of better description, pretty half-assed.”
