John Frankman

One year ago today, I met President Trump & asked him how he would repair the military from the damage done by the COVID shot mandate & hold leaders accountability. He said he wanted troops to be reinstated with back pay & would hold leaders accountable by “firing their assess.” One year later, the number of reinstatements is abysmal and there is no accountability for senior leaders who carried out unlawful orders against their subordinates. In this video and others it is clear Trump & Secretary of War Pete Hegseth intend to bring as many service members back as possible. The sabotaged reinstatement process is overly tedious & complicated. The linguistic framing of reinstatement policies is Orwellian Biden-era lies. Benefits promised to SMs are withheld, & no senior leader was explicitly fired or held accountable for COVID tyranny. Under the current policy, SMs aren’t receiving full back pay as the pay they should receive is deducted from anything they earned as a civilian from the date they were kicked out to their reinstatement date. The current policy language fails to acknowledge all were coerced by the mandate & distinguishes between the involuntarily & the “voluntarily” separated which precludes those who were coerced, punished, & left rather than wait to get kicked out from receiving backpay. Language such as “separated solely for not getting the shot” is used rather than inclusively considering everyone who would still be serving if not for the shot. Returning SMs need to go through the MEPS (military entrance processing station) & the BCM/NR (board of corrections for military/naval records) process & submit W-2s to show how much they earned as a civilian since being forced out. Even if they return to service, there is no establish guidance or policy to help them get their careers back on track. What’s more, bc there has been zero accountability, they have to return to work for the same “leaders” who punished them thru carrying out an unlawful order. Under the current guidance, I would receive nothing and am considered “voluntarily” separated as I didn’t leave “solely” for COVID shot refusal even tho I lost out on deployments, team time, & the career opportunity to teach at West Point for not getting the COVID shot & left rather than wait to get kicked out. Yesterday Under Secretary of War Anthony J. Tata published new guidance that failed to implement anything dozens of us affected by the mandate recommended to him in a “listening” session last month. He stated, “We're fully committed to supporting our warfighters impacted by the COVID vaccine mandate. Last month, we held a reinstatement listening session to better understand their concerns.” His memo outlines the actions OUSW (P&R) took to address them & next steps. It’s not just ignoring what we said, it’s running out the clock and disenfranchising the thousands of service members of conscience Secretary of War Pete Hegseth wants to return to formation. The only saving grace is the reinstatement of COL Kevin Bouren. If courageous & bold actions aren’t taken, tens of thousands of troops who left bc of the mandate will never return, the damage will go unrepaired, leaders who carried out the mandate will continue to shape the military culture, and this WILL happen again.

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