“Federal government redress of any wrongful dismissals is overdue,” an announcement from the White House said.
The order has an impact on some military personnel who worked at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
A Cincinnati-area attorney, Chris Wiest, represented plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit against the mandate, among them Hunter Doster, who at one time was an Air Force first lieutenant working for Air Force Research Laboratory, which is headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Wiest said at the time he was seeking back pay for his clients.
The order recalls that in August 2021, then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin mandated that all service members receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
As of July 2022, the Air Force had discharged 834 Air Force and Space Force members for refusing the vaccine.
The Department of Defense rescinded the mandate in early 2023.
“The vaccine mandate was an unfair, overbroad, and completely unnecessary burden on our service members,” Trump’s order states. “Further, the military unjustly discharged those who refused the vaccine, regardless of the years of service given to our nation, after failing to grant many of them an exemption that they should have received. ”
The order instructs the secretaries of defense and homeland security to “make reinstatement available to all members of the military (active and reserve) who were discharged solely for refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and who request to be reinstated.”
Those reinstated are expected to receive their former rank and “receive full back pay, benefits, bonus payments, or compensation.”
Further, the order holds that any service members “who provide a written and sworn attestation that they voluntarily left the service or allowed their service to lapse according to appropriate procedures, rather than be vaccinated under the vaccine mandate, to return to service with no impact on their service status, rank, or pay.”
Within 60 days, the secretaries of defense and homeland security are expected to report to Trump on their progress in implementing the order.