Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed that he will “continually review” how the Pentagon works to welcome back service providers forced to leave over the COVID vaccine mandate.
The military under former President Joe Biden mandated that all service members take the COVID vaccine in the summer of 2021, an order that was rescinded in early 2023. President Donald Trump introduced an executive order last month offering full rank and back pay for service members removed from the military over the mandate who now choose to return.
Hegseth commented in an interview last week that the vaccine mandate “never should have been done to these men and women,” promising to facilitate the return of service members while evaluating the logistical hurdles that the effort could present to the Pentagon.
“They never should have been forced out for an experimental vaccine,” Hegseth said. “They never should have been denied religious exemptions. None of that should have happened.”
Hegseth continued that there are “some complications around how you apply it,” such as determining “when did you get out, why did you get out, and then how do you reestablish that.”
“How do you reestablish time and grade? How do you reestablish pay?” Hegseth remarked during the interview. “You want to get it right, and there’s certain contingencies or scenarios where if you don’t plan how you process it properly, then people could feel left behind.”
Many have contended that the COVID vaccine mandate contributed to decreased recruitment in recent years, alongside leftist ideology in the military and the failed withdrawal from Afghanistan. Hegseth added that welcoming service members affected by the mandate is “a centerpiece of what President Trump said he would restore for service members who were kicked out.”
Trump and Hegseth recently revealed that military recruitment has risen substantially in the weeks after the election and inauguration to the highest levels in over a decade. “We’ve done lots of interviews and we asked why this was taking place now, and they just said there’s a spirit about our country that they haven’t seen in many, many years,” Trump remarked about the shift.
