No backpay for unvaccinated soldiers, says Pentagon

The Defense Department (DoD) has decided that service members who were dismissed for refusing the COVID-19 injections will not receive backpay. 

The DoD was ordered to repeal the vaccine mandate for service members after Congress negotiated the decision in the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Republican attempts to add a clause in the NDAA to reinstate the over-8,000 unvaccinated members who were discharged, with backpay, were voted down. To date, the Army has booted 1,841 service members, the Navy 2,032 and the Marine Corps 3,717 over their health choice.   

Instead, it was left up to the DoD to decide whether soldiers who were dismissed would be reinstated and if they would receive backpay. 

But when asked by a reporter about reinstatement and backpay at a Tuesday press briefing, Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder announced backpay will not be issued. 

“In terms of backpay, you're talking specifically on COVID vaccination? What I would tell you is right now, we are not currently pursuing backpay to service members who were dismissed for refusing to take the COVID vaccination,” said Ryder. 

The Pentagon did not respond to a Frontline News inquiry if unvaccinated soldiers will be reinstated. 

In a memo last week rescinding his original vaccine mandate from August 21, 2021, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that unvaccinated service members who “sought an accommodation on religious, administrative or medical grounds” would not be separated from the Armed Forces and would have any adverse actions taken against them, including letters of reprimand, reversed.  

But the memo continued to say that those soldiers may still be kept from deployment or assignments based on their vaccination status.  

“Other standing Departmental policies, procedures, and processes regarding immunizations remain in full effect,” wrote Austin. “These include the ability of commanders to consider, as appropriate, the individual immunization status of personnel in making deployment, assignment, and other operational decisions, including when vaccination is required for travel to, or entry into, a foreign nation.”  

Frontline News previously reported the Navy’s refusal to deploy 35 Navy SEALs who refused the shots, as well as a destroyer commanded by an unvaccinated officer. The Air Force has also been grounding pilots who have refused the COVID-19 injections. Nothing in Biden’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) signed last month requires military brass to allow soldiers to do their jobs.    

Sec. Austin also said that for those service members discharged on the sole basis that they “failed to obey a lawful order to receive a vaccine for COVID-19, the Department is precluded by law from awarding any characterization less than a general (under honorable conditions) discharge.”