Tens of thousands of service members and veterans were negatively impacted by previous illegally mandated anthrax vaccines and COVID-19 shots. Righting the wrongs continues to be an uphill battle despite the efforts of President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The Gateway Pundit spoke to Colonel (retired) Tom “Buzz” Rempfer, author of Unyielding: Marathons Against Illegal Mandates. The U.S. Air Force veteran is an advocate for service members and veterans who have been subjected to illegal medical experimentation while serving in the nation’s military.
Former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s rescinded 2021 COVID-19 shot mandate further stirred his passion to remedy the “multi-decade attempt by Department of Defense (DoD) deep state bureaucrats to cover up harms from illegal and unlawful mandates.” The cover-up followed the military’s illegal use of anthrax vaccines between 1997 and 2003, only to resurface again through the “unlawful as implemented” COVID-19 shot mandate between 2021 and 2023.
In 2018, he said, President Trump attempted to correct the wrongs related to “errors, inequities, and injustices due to the anthrax vaccine mandate.” And in 2025, Defense Secretary Hegseth joined President Trump’s efforts to restore the military following the COVID-19 shot mandate, offering reinstatement with backpay and benefits for those unlawfully separated from service.
But according to Rempfer, “President Trump was undermined with respect to the anthrax mandates in 2018 when he attempted corrections, and now again with COVID-19 mandate injustices in 2025.” According to him, “In 2018, the DoD didn’t publish their corrections memo, obscured its intent by not mentioning anthrax, and provided zero outreach. In both eras, the DoD was tasked to remedy the injustices, but instead they unduly delayed the process, arbitrarily and capriciously denied applications, and thwarted the intent of the President and Defense Secretary.”
On June 2, Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services, Inc. (STARRS), the MacArthur Society of West Point Graduates, and the Calvert Task Group sent a letter to President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth. The letter calls upon President Trump to offer “unconditional pardon and amnesty” to service members affected by anthrax vaccinations and COVID-19 shots. In addition, the letter asks the President to, “direct the Secretary of Defense and Service Secretaries to remand all previously denied BCMR (Board for Correction of Military Records) cases for expedited reconsideration to promptly provide full and fitting relief.”
For Rempfer, the STARRS letter is “a seminal event,” explaining that “it suggests a prudent path for the President to outflank past and current efforts to undermine him as Commander in Chief by neutering the BCMRs.” The retired colonel explained, “If President Trump unconditionally pardons all troops impacted by anthrax and COVID mandates, then the BCMRs serve as a requisite statutory entity to award remedies, versus a bureaucratic barrier that arbitrarily and capriciously adjudicates cases, issues denials, and delays justice.” The administrative body would no longer be able to deny correcting adverse actions taken during the anthrax era and more recent COVID-19 shot debacle.
“DoD’s violations were 1,000 times worse than anything they falsely allege against our troops,” Rempfer argued. Echoing the sentiment of STARRS’ Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Michael Rose, he said, “It was the DoD that egregiously violated the law during both the anthrax vaccine and COVID shot eras.” In contrast, Rempfer maintains, “our troops that refused upheld their Oaths of Office.”
What’s more, he said, “It strains credulity that the BCMRs are even allowed to adjudicate cases and deny justice.” However, because it’s an obligatory statutory requirement, he explained “a Presidential Executive Order directing unconditional pardons for all troops in both eras resets the process and expedites justice by tasking BCMRs to only mete out remedies, without biased interpretations.”
Consider the recent BCMR application denial of Army Chief Warrant Officer 3 Brandon Budge. The Army Black Hawk helicopter pilot objected to the unlawful COVID-19 shot in 2021 and has been punished for it. Without intervention, CW3 Budge will be separated from the Army on September 1. A presidential pardon would wipe the slate clean, restore his promotion, and save his 21-year career.
Rempfer also pointed out a recent BCMR ruling on an anthrax-era case that was favorable for the service member, providing an upgraded discharge to fully honorable. Rempfer noted, “Out of thousands of wrongful adverse personnel actions over the illegal anthrax vaccine mandate, which was ruled illegal by federal courts in 2003, this was only the third record correction in over 20 years, all under Trump’s leadership.”
He added, “two other upgrades occurred in 2018 when Trump’s White House ordered corrections for the anthrax vaccine mandate, until Biden’s DoD halted all further justice.”
For both anthrax vaccinations and COVID-19 shots, he said, the DoD “blatantly violated” laws for the military, particularly 10 USC 1107 and 1107a, which were “designed to ensure that troops are informed of their ‘prior consent’ rights and the ‘option to accept or refuse’ administration of unapproved medical products,” Rempfer explained.
He pointed out the latest anthrax vaccine mandate correction case documentation affirms the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, or OUSD(P&R), acknowledged in 2005 that anthrax vaccine was the first-ever Emergency Use Authorized shot, an “unapproved, experiment medical products that could not be mandated.”
He asserted, “Despite the admissions, OUSD(P&R) continues to permit case delays and denials, leaving service members unable to rectify incorrect legal rulings or injustices marring their military records over the mandates that the Pentagon unequivocally knew were intended to be explicitly ‘voluntary.’”
“At a minimum,” Rempfer said, “the DoD must reach out to all punished anthrax era vets and provide guidance to upgrade discharges, just like it’s actively doing for COVID era vets.”
But the solution he prefers is the STARRS-recommended “presidential pardon for all anthrax and COVID era vets, and changes to the process to award remedies unconditionally, retroactively, and unilaterally, without application, which was clearly the President’s intent since 2018.”
The post The Boards for Correction of Military Records are an Insult to the Efforts of President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth, Undermining Their Intentions to Restore the Military appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.