On April 23, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum to direct the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to provide supplemental remedies for service members and former service members who were adversely affected by COVID-19 shot mandate through adverse actions and more.
In a video shared on X concerning the matter, Defense Secretary Hegseth said, “We all know that the previous administration issued unlawful orders (emphasis added) on mandatory vaccines on an experimental vaccine [for] COVID-19.” Later in the video, he referred to the previous administration’s “unlawful vaccine mandate” for a second time.
An update on COVID-19 reinstatements. pic.twitter.com/o8GVFAlcJN
— Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (@SecDef) April 23, 2025
Interestingly, in the text of the memo sent to senior Pentagon leadership and others, the illegality of the mandate was not mentioned. Rather, the “COVID-19 vaccine mandate” was referred to as “unfair, overbroad, and unnecessary.” For those “unjustly impacted” by refusing the shot, the words sent to senior Pentagon leadership have meaning.
Kacy Dixon, a former Air Force intelligence officer and Judge Advocate General (JAG), offered further insight. Referencing the disparity between the language in the memo compared to the video by Hegseth, she told The Gateway Pundit that she observed “someone who is surrounded by an entrenched bureaucracy.” She explained that “while I believe Secretary Hegseth is someone who is willing to speak the truth, plainly calling it an unlawful order as he did in the video, it is a near certainty someone else typed up the memo he signed.” This could be a staffer or an attorney, perhaps.
For Dixon, the video provided him an opportunity to speak freely, and without any restraint. And regarding the document he signed, she said, “I’m not concerned that it’s lacking the ‘unlawful’ language, nor am I surprised by it.” Important to her is the fact that “when we’re talking about court cases and the like, video and verbal statements are admissible in the same manner as written statements.” Defense Secretary Hegseth’s words in the video were made in his official capacity as Secretary of Defense from his official Secretary of Defense X account, she noted.
The 16-year veteran of the Air Force, whose career was negatively impacted by the shot mandate, admitted, “What I’d like to see most is a policy memo to the force explaining why the mandate of this shot was unlawful.” For her, “the ‘why’ matters.” She explained, “We have people who are considering returning to military service, but there’s still a vast majority of people in the military who issued these orders, implemented these orders, and still believe that refusers violated a lawful order.” According to her, “they are still considered criminals.”
But it’s the same senior leadership that does not understand the violation of legal issues that were involved in the now rescinded 2021 COVID-19 shot mandate. “They don’t understand that, yes, FDA approval occurred, but no FDA approved doses of the vaccine were ever manufactured and offered to service members,” she explained. Laws were broken and Dixon would be delighted to see Defense Secretary Hegseth explain the how and why the mandate and shot were unlawful and a violation of service members’ protected rights.
An April 24 post on X by former Green Beret and Constitutional attorney, Lt. Col. (retired) Ivan Raiklin, expresses similar sentiment, sharing a revised version of the SecDef’s memo. The added red text and red strikethroughs express the thoughts and feelings of many service members affected by the mandate.
To: @SecDef @PeteHegseth https://t.co/DbaswyruqR
— Ivan Raiklin (@IvanRaiklin) April 24, 2025
For those separated, and those forced out like Brad Miller, the shot mandate was not simply “unfair, overbroad, and unnecessary,” but it was illegal and those who enforced it should be held to account.
The former U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, who previously served as an Army battalion commander in the 101st Airborne, was relieved of command in October 2021 for refusing the shot after more than 19 years of service. He told The Gateway Pundit that acknowledgment of the “unlawful” nature of the mandate’s implementation is “essential.” However, he argued Defense Secretary Hegseth’s statement is “only the starting point and not the end.” For him, “If the law was broken—and it was—then there must be accountability.”
“Faceless organizations don’t break laws; individual people within those organizations do,” Miller shared. “Those people must be held accountable.” And for this reason, he said, “this also means that the current remedies offered by the Department of Defense are totally inadequate.”
“DoD has presented separate reinstatement offers for those it considers ‘involuntarily separated’ as opposed to those who ‘voluntarily’ left the service,” he pointed out. “However, in light of the illegality of the mandate’s implementation, we must reconsider how ‘voluntary’ these departures from the military actually were, [considering] these service members were confronted with unlawful orders and left service rather than comply.”
With specific regard to the unlawfulness of the experimental product offered at the time, 10 USC §1107a codifies that service members must have the right to informed consent, which was not provided.
“Proper accountability must begin with thorough investigations aimed at determining the scope of unlawful, negligent, or otherwise inappropriate actions performed and by whom,” Miller asserted. “These investigations and resulting measures must be conducted with the objective of pursuing justice, providing restitution to those impacted, and repairing the trust that has been so severely harmed over the last few years.”
In October 2024, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump fired a shot that hit the target. “Yeah … there would be accountability, is right. We’ll fire their asses,” he stated.
Defense Secretary Hegseth, many service members want to know who’s been fired over the unlawful implementation and enforcement of the now-rescinded 2021 COVID-19 shot mandate?
The post Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Signed a Memorandum to Provide Remedies for Service Members Who Were Hurt by Experimental COVID Vaccines – Now Those Affected Want to Know If Anyone Was Fired appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.