Exclusive: War Dept Battles To Reinstate 86 Covid-Lost Soldiers

It’s been ten months since President Donald Trump ordered the full reinstatement of any willing military employees ejected for declining Covid-19 shots, but as of Nov. 15 just 86 such personnel have been reinstated. The reinstatements so far account for less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the military personnel who likely left over the Biden administration mandate, depleting the military of some of its highest-character members and causing a historic personnel crisis.

President Trump’s defense team is “picking up steam” to address the reinstatements more quickly and fruitfully and approval times are down to two to three weeks after the application package is completed, Undersecretary of War for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata told The Federalist in a Tuesday afternoon phone call from his office. Confirmed in July, Tata said he immediately sought out veterans experiencing impediments to reinstatement. In September and October meetings and memorandums, “I tasked in no uncertain terms to the services that they will treat each of the members with the dignity that they deserve,” Tata said.

“There’s a lot of moving pieces, there’s a lot of good people working very hard on this,” Tata said. “We all understand the president’s executive order and the secretary’s directive, and we are moving out at full speed to welcome every single person that wants to come back from this disaffected community.”

When one service member posted online that a military processing station had turned her away from seeking the reinstatement the Trump administration has promised, Tata said after talking with her he called up the station commander and said, “What part of this don’t you understand?”

More formally, he noted the department is investigating Biden-era Covid policies and their implementation across the branches, and that investigation will make recommendations about whether and which personnel violated law and military policy in carrying out Covid orders. The investigation team includes service members reinstated after the Biden administration drummed them out of the military for their conscientious objections to Covid mandates.

Former Air Force judge advocate general Kacy Dixon, herself reinstated after declining a Covid shot while pregnant, is Tata’s liaison to that investigation and to Covid-separated soldiers seeking reparations the administration has promised for their injuries, including honorable discharges, lost benefits, and back pay, even if they don’t re-enlist. Tata noted that back pay for reinstated soldiers is often between $100,000-$150,000 per person and it includes the proper pay for promotions soldiers would have earned if they hadn’t been punished for exercising their constitutional conscience rights.

Below are the reinstatement numbers across branches, in a table provided exclusively to The Federalist Tuesday afternoon by the Department of War. A total of 86 soldiers have been reinstated so far, out of 617 who have applied, for a total of 14 percent reinstatements so far. The department stressed the numbers change frequently as personnel move through the reinstatement process, and it is seeking to accelerate these numbers.

From 2020 to 2023, the U.S. armed forces population declined by approximately 95,000 civilian, reserve, and active-duty personnel, according to federal data. While conventional counts claim approximately just 8,400 of these left over the mandate, numerous sources told The Federalist most of that 95,000 likely left over the mandate but didn’t cite it due to military mistreatment of those who requested exemptions. Instead, those who could discreetly took early retirements or declined to re-up their service.

Trump’s executive order allows for such soldiers who “provide a written and sworn attestation” that they left over the mandate to re-enlist. But family members and friends of those attempting to do so have said on social media and to The Federalist that the service branches and Pentagon bureaucracy have made that process overwhelmingly burdensome and difficult, dampening interest in reinstatements. The Pentagon’s thick layers of bureaucracy and infighting are legendary.

A current DoW undersecretary who oversees all military promotions and personnel matters, Stephanie Miller, oversaw the implementation and enforcement of the shot mandate under Joe Biden and was previously the “diversity and inclusion” director for the entire military. Her husband, Colby Miller, is a defense and pharmaceutical industry lobbyist, a potential major conflict of interest.

Biden announced the mandate in August 2021. A defense spending bill signed at the end of December 2022 ended the vaccine mandate. The mandate led to the worst military personnel and recruiting crisis in its all-volunteer history. The service branches responded by lowering standards such as retaining recruits who failed drug tests during boot camp and easing fitness requirements.

Under Biden, the U.S. military branches denied almost every request for conscience and medical exemptions to the shot mandate. This effectively purged the service members with the strongest ethical standards, Army Col. Brad Lewis, a chaplain with 13 deployments and 30 years of service who filed for early retirement over the mandate, told The Federalist last year: “When people that are willing to speak candidly are removed from the service for any reason, you’re going to find yourself devoid of people willing to do that.”

Implementing Trump’s January executive order has required an internal battle with Pentagon and service branch bureaucrats that has lasted the entirety of the second Trump administration. It’s required staff shakeups and the repeated personal attention of Hegseth and numerous undersecretaries.

On Oct. 2, Hegseth personally reinstated Army Col. Kevin Bouren and appointed him to lead the new Covid Reinstatement Task Force. On Nov. 14, Bouren and Undersecretary of War Anthony Tata personally reinstated one of the other few soldiers to make it through so far, Army Capt. Mark Bashaw. Bashaw was retroactively promoted to captain from first lieutenant and reinstated with honors. On Nov. 19, Army Maj. Grant Smith joined the task force.

Bashaw offered “Glory to God” on his X account after the reinstatement, noting it resulted after “unlawful discharge, court-martial, ban from my place of duty for 413 days, threats of Leavenworth imprisonment, and numerous other reprisals for refusing to be experimented on with weaponized CV19 products and for submitting protected communications through my chain of command.” As a medical officer, Bashaw says he felt it was his duty to object to the Covid injections forced on military personnel via an illegal emergency authorization.

Bashaw was also placed on one of two Covid task forces DoW created on Nov. 5 to “examine the development, implementation & outcomes of the policy” and that include “members of the affected community,” Tata posted on X.

This followed months of complaints from affected former service members, their families, and their supporters on social media and in person. On April 23, Secretary Hegseth went above and beyond the president’s January executive order to tell Pentagon, DoW, and service branch leaders to stop stalling the reinstatements.

That resulted in just 13 departed soldiers being reinstated by September, and a bevy of related bad press among Trump and Hegseth supporters who had hoped for better fulfillment of their promises. Hegseth, Tata, and other senior officials met with service members separated over their conscientious objections to the Covid vaccine on Sept. 3.

Afterward, Hegseth and Tata got even more aggressive on the issue, creating a new task force and tasking formerly Covid-discharged soldiers to accelerate the reinstatements. On Oct. 2, Tata issued a memo expanding on Hegseth’s April directive. The memo specifies policy changes to accelerate reinstatements, including speeding the reinstatement process, attention from senior officers, and fully reinstating all suspended benefits. It demands “special-category VIP treatment” for conscience-discharged veterans seeking reinstatement.

Navy Secretary John Phelan told The Federalist earlier this month the Navy was “pretty far ahead of most of the other services” in reinstatements and had reduced reinstatement wait time from six months to two. Phelan’s assistant secretary for manpower is another reinstated conscientious objector.

This Federalist reporter broke the news in October 2021 that the Biden administration attempted to stave off lawsuits against its shot mandate for private employers by issuing it initially via press release and then pursuing a rarely used emergency rulemaking process.

“We appreciate you and others holding us accountable on this issue because this is a critical issue for us,” Tata told The Federalist. “…We intend to win, and winning means everybody that wants to come back in is able to come back, and is made whole.”