Reversing Mandate Injustices

[Thomas_Rempfer]

Department of Defense (DoD) injustices related to COVID and anthrax mandates should be reversed and will serve as an overdue affirmation of civilian control of the military.

President Trump, JD Vance, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have already promised, or attempted, these actions.

President Trump as Commander in Chief (CINC) can do so with an Executive Order.

The Executive Order (EO) should be an unconditionally simple directive, allowing no obstruction by the DoD.

Corrections of injustices should make servicemembers whole, unilaterally, retroactively, and without application.

Corrections must include unconditional upgrades for characterizations of discharge to fully honorable, regardless of whether or not former Servicemembers return to service, as well as recission of all adverse personnel actions for current and former Servicemembers.

As President Trump has promised, those Servicemembers who return to service will receive back pay and should receive retroactive Special Selection Board consideration for missed promotions.

Alternatively, in the interest of justice and efficiency, automatic advancements to the next eligible grade may be in order due to the complexities involved with making professional records whole.

Any Servicemember who was retained during the period of the mandate who was barred from participating, and receiving creditable points and years of service, should be retroactively granted constructive credits for all missed points and years of creditable service.

The basis to justify corrections for the COVID mandate hinges on the DoD’s August 2021 SecDef Directive. In paragraph 5, the directive affirmed that mandates could only be imposed for FDA-approved shots.

FDA-approved shots never materialized throughout the entirety of the mandate deadlines. All injections were Emergency Use Authorized (EUA), i.e., “unapproved medical products,” therefore were not allowed to be mandated. Therefore, the DoD violated the express provisions of the SecDef directive (again, para 5).

The subsequent injustices of harmed careers or coerced resignations with less than fully honorable discharges warrant reversal. All U.S. Service Members should be made whole, since it was the DoD that broke the rules, not our troops. Corrections boards should only be required if DoD does not comply with the EO.

The DoD violated 10 USC 1107a, and civilian mandates violated 21 USC 360bbb-3. EUA products are “unapproved medical products,” and could not be mandated.

EUA products were used for all mandates, requiring an “option to accept or refuse.” Commonsense and a strict read of the law supported voluntary EUA injections. As a result, commonsense and justice support correcting the resulting injustices.

Unilateral, retroactive corrections of historic injustices over illegal anthrax vaccine mandate punishments should be added to the EO, without application. The anthrax vaccine mandate was ruled illegal by a federal court in 2003.

In 2018, Pres Trump attempted corrections that were obscured, obstructed and undermined by the DoD, then ultimately halted by the Biden administration. The DoD implementation memo failed to mention anthrax vaccine and was never published.

Corrections of anthrax mandate punishments were academic since the federal courts ruled that mandate illegal. Past draft legislative attempts are provided here: Hoping4Justice.org Congress also modified 10 USC 1178 via the 2001 NDAA, requiring the DoD to track anthrax vaccine mandate refusals and separations, so there is no excuse to not immediately and unilaterally provide justice to all impacted troops.

Precedent language related to the first-ever EUA for anthrax vaccine affirmed “no penalty” and no punishment for exercising the legal right to accept or refuse, and is detailed in the Federal Register. The DoD violated this precedent with COVID mandates.

Parallel corrections for the civilian population should be considered as well based on overt violations of 21 USC 360bbb-3 that required the option to accept or refuse EUA unapproved medical products.

Bottom line, compassionate accountability begins with reversing mandate injustices, with the stroke of a pen. An ineluctable executive directive will discourage future abuses of power and discretion.

Finally, immediately rectify injustices in the form of medical harms by caring for ill troops and add both anthrax and COVID injections to the PACT Act as presumptive conditions for disability.

Two draft Executive Orders, one with historical background and the other advocating the establishment of a Presidential Commission on Military COVID-19 and Anthrax Policies (COMCAP), for consideration by President Trump are available at the bottom of the following webpage:

Hoping 4 Justice

[David_Hamski]

I absolutely agree. Here’s a flowchart diagram I made a few weeks ago to visualize the steps to be take by the federal government and DoD.

[Thomas_Rempfer]

David, thank you.

You include an accountability column. I am intentionally silent on that silo, but absolutely agree with you that in the name of civilian control of the military our next civilian leaders must extract accountability.

I emphasize that the first step in holding the DoD accountable is correcting the wrongs. Corrections in the form of upgraded discharge characterization and recission of punishments is one silo you appear to be silent on, but I think it’s an imperative action.

The good news our potential next civilian leadership team are having this dialogue, a dialectic that is entirely muted within the current leadership.

Between our two sets of suggestions we attempt to offer thoughtful policy ideas to current or future leaders. I’m grateful they asked for inputs from the PEOPLE!

[wtadam (Tim Adams)]

This seems to be very officer focused, particularly when it comes to making people whole. School and year groups are not something the enlisted side deals with other than brief and infrequent PME.

Retained or not, the following should apply.
Many were treated horribly. Essentially or literally put in closets and not allowed to do anything including anything to keep up or compete with their peers, irreparably damaging their progress. No amount of “selection boards” with or without “points” will fix this because their performance records contain nothing which will allow them to make up for lost opportunities to compete with peers. Even years later there is no coming back from this because records follow you for a 5 years on promotion boards and 2 or 3 below average performance reports will essentially result in the lowest possible board score.

Unlike POWs who come back with their honor intact, who are rightfully showered with honors upon their return, those who survived the COVID times were still outcasts and so far behind their peers there was no coming back. I’ve never been a POW and cannot speak to what they endure. That said, part of survival training teaches you to expect to be treated poorly and anyone with any sense would expect their captors to be less than friendly. What those who did not experience this fail to grasp is the way this completely shattered any sense of belonging and trust in the military and the people around them. Many are now plagued by anxiety and unable to trust in the organizations for which they dedicated and sacrificed so much. Turning to alcohol, drugs, and suicide was the answer for many. This can’t be swept under the rug and everything possible that can be done to make them somewhat whole needs to be done.

What needs to happen

1. Formal written apology to SM and family signed by senior leadership.
2. Treat them like POWs. Automatically admin promoted to the next grade at first eligible opportunity which will include back-dating records including retirement records. Back pay appropriately. To E9s and Generals (doubt there were any generals) who could not be further promoted, cash like a re-enlistment bonus or commission bonus.
3. Re-instate all earned benefits
4. Correct all discharges to honorable
5. Pay for medical, mental health, rehabilitation etc…
6. If still around, assignment of choice to get out of the toxic environment they are likely still enduring.

Those separated, reinstatement offer and the above regardless of acceptance.

[Thomas_Rempfer]

Tim - thank you. I will continue to tweak. You’re on target about the dilemma on how to handle all ranks equitably. I concur with the automatic advancements in rank as more equitable to preclude the inadequacy and complexity of constructive credits. I’ll keep working on it, and hopefully you can be a part of a team that implements these solutions.

[Nicole_C_Scott (Sovereign Sapien)]

This runs parallel to making mandates illegal in general as specified in this subsection 1 (of 8) Pharmaceutical Mandates Ban Act (PATA-Subsection 01)

[Thomas_Rempfer]

And, this policy emphasizes that mandates for unapproved medical products, e.g., unlicensed biologics and EUAs, are already illegal per 10 USC 1107 & 1107a for the military and 21 USC 360bbb-3 for civilians. As a result, this proposal suggests remedies for past circumstances where the government blatantly violated established laws. Aggressive corrections will curb future abuses of power and discretion.

[Nicole_C_Scott (Sovereign Sapien)]

@Thomas_Rempfer

mandates for unapproved medical products, e.g., unlicensed biologics and EUAs, are already illegal per 10 USC 1107 & 1107a for the military and 21 USC 360bbb-3 for civilians.

Thank you for this important information. While § 360bbb-3 outlines the conditions under which unapproved medical products can be used in emergencies, it does not explicitly prohibit mandates for these products. However, the previous EUA initiative was implemented under arguably false pretenses—namely, these products were labeled as vaccines when they are, in fact, therapeutics. Additionally, the use of coercion, including threats of job loss, raises significant ethical and legal questions. There are legal precedents where plaintiffs have successfully argued that such mandates were illegal, leading to court orders for the reinstatement of jobs with back pay. This situation underscores the need for clear laws against mandating such products, particularly to safeguard against governmental overreach and to protect the American people from despotism and violations of our Bill of Rights, which is why a Comprehensive Act is necessary.

[Thomas_Rempfer]

Concur, the law is not explicit, but at the same time it does not include any language supporting mandates. The “option to accept or refuse” is pretty clear cut, until the word “consequences” was misinterpreted by the DoJ. The context of “consequences” in actuality is found in both 21 CFR 50.25 and 45 CFR 46, as well as the anthrax vaccine federal register precedent that required voluntary EUA unapproved medical product programs. Each of those human protection regulations and the FR entry include the word “consequences,” as well as the guarantee of “no penalty” for choosing the option to accept or refuse EUA unapproved medical products. Even the CRS deleted their reference to the DoJ’s concocted concept of “secondary consequences,” which the DoJ simply made up. That concept exists nowhere in the law or CFR’s. The recission of the Chevron precedent by the SCOTUS would be sufficient to overrule the DoJ’s invention of new terms and misinterpretations of the law. Good news is the federal government previously agreed that mandates are not something that were permitted and the next administration also supports the reality that mandates are not prudent. See graphics below Next step is to fix all the harms that resulted from the patently illegal mandates.