Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News earlier this week said he will “continually review” how to bring back troops who were kicked out or left due to the Biden administration’s COVID vaccine mandate.
“The reality is that this never should have been done to these men and women. They never should have been forced out for an experimental vaccine. They never should have been denied religious exemptions. None of that should have happened,” Hegseth said in the interview Thursday.
“From President Trump to me on down, we recognized that for the wrong that it is, and we will explore even more formal ways to acknowledge that,” he added.
WATCH — Pete Hegseth Calls Out European Leaders to Their Face over Not Paying for Their Own Defense:
The acting Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness released a memo last week outlining the procedures for reinstating troops. The memo instructs the military services to directly contact those who were kicked out and make reinstatement available to them, and to publicly communicate to those who left voluntarily that they are welcome back if they present a written statement attesting they left due to the mandate and agree to at least two years of active-duty service.
However, some who fought the mandate while in uniform said the memo did not address lost promotions, courts-martial, or accountability for military leaders who had enforced the mandate.
Hegseth said he and his team will “continually review” the process to make sure troops are reinstated properly.
WATCH — Let’s Get to Work! Pete Hegseth Arrives at Pentagon After Confirmation:
“There’s some complications around how you apply it, right? It’s 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? And so that’s taken a little bit longer to put into play because 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. So, we’re going to continually review that, make sure it’s done properly,” he said.
The Biden administration kicked out more than 8,000 U.S. troops from the military after they refused to take the experimental COVID vaccine. Tens of thousands more troops are estimated to have left voluntarily, after facing pressure to take the vaccine. Their departures strained a military that was already suffering from a historic recruiting crisis.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in his first week to reinstate troops who want to return.
“The goal is to make sure those that were affected by the policy are impacted. So, we’ll pay close attention to it,” Hegseth said.
He added, “It matters a lot to the president, it matters a lot to me. This is not some passing, small thing. It is a centerpiece of what President Trump said he would restore for service members who were kicked out, forced out, pushed out, and we want to reflect that. So I’m going to be paying a lot of attention to that.”
Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on “X”, Truth Social, or on Facebook.
