The Following Content Has Been Provided by:J.M. Phelps
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 mandate era, tens of thousands of service members who were forced to leave the U.S. military, or who left on their own over the issue, are now being invited back. However, relatively few have expressed a desire to return to a military that, not long ago, trampled on their freedoms.
On July 26, Stuart Scheller, senior adviser to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, turned his focus to the reinstatement process. While many commended him for his effort, he also made a statement that heightened the concerns of those who were negatively impacted by the 2021 mandate and who continue to demand that some senior military leaders be held accountable for illegally enforcing the experimental shot.
“… [M]any who exited the service because of poor treatment over the shot refusal want retribution. I get tagged every day with posts questioning when commanders at every level of the military will be thrown in jail for ‘illegally enforcing the COVID vaccine.’ That’s not going to happen. Time to move forward.”
Two days after Scheller’s statement, this reporter emailed him requesting clarification of what could be interpreted as saying military leadership will not be held accountable for enforcing the “unlawful as implemented” mandate. To date, no response has been received from Scheller.
Moments ago, I sent a letter directly to Mr. Stuart Scheller. Regarding some of his recent public statements, I am merely seeking clarification for the hundreds of service members I know personally who were adversely affected by the COVID-19 shot mandate. https://t.co/XGXNehuPRV pic.twitter.com/TlRseIlxhr
— J.M. Phelps (@JMPhelpsLC) July 28, 2025
WorldNetDaily spoke to retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Darin Gaub, a former UH-60 Black Hawk pilot and battalion commander.
“Quite disappointed” by Scheller’s lack of response, Gaub said, “Those who have risked a lot and lost a lot in the fight for liberty are begging and asking for transparency from every agency.” Service members and veterans, as well as the American people, want “absolute truth and honesty from everybody involved,” he added.
Failure to demand accountability on behalf of the tens of thousands of service members adversely affected by the COVID-19 mandate is “a break in trust with the very people who make the military what it is,” said Gaub. “It doesn’t matter what else you do, because if you break trust and refuse to restore it to the people who make up the military, your military will never be as strong and as sound as you want it to be.”
“You have to have accountability to restore trust,” he added, “and those who willingly and knowingly violated laws and ethical standards to push the jabs need to be held accountable regardless of rank or position.” Whatever “the smoke and mirrors or the cover story” military leaders who enforced the mandate try to create, he said, “they need to be held 100 percent accountable.”
“If that doesn’t happen, especially in the four years of this [Trump] administration, you will never see trust restored,” Gaub stressed, because without real accountability, “they’ll miss any chance of rebuilding the backbone of what makes the military strong and what makes it lethal.”
What would accountability look like? For Gaub, it would mean some senior military leaders considered for courts-martial. He would even advocate that such proceedings be televised, to show the American people that law breakers, even in the military, will not be tolerated. In addition, he said, “their retirement grade should be based on their last known honorable conduct,” which would have occurred before the now-rescinded 2021 vax mandate.
Bottom line, said the former Army chopper pilot and battalion commander: “If you can’t promise the people sitting at home that their children will not be put in the same position and not have to suffer the consequences” of upholding their moral and religious convictions to object to an unproven and experimental shot, “you’ll never have the best and brightest of America go into a system that’s going to chew them up and spit them out.”
On the other hand, WND also spoke to an Air Force officer who agreed with Scheller. A fighter pilot affected by the mandates, and who asked to have his name withheld for this story, he considers it “impractical to fire people or anything else of the sort, [arguing that] just because they violated 10 U.S.C. § 1107a does not mean they have criminal liability.” The U.S. Code should have required informed consent for the “emergency use” of the COVID-19 shot. However, this was not provided to service members.
Despite the law, he suggested, “the Defense Department’s best policy for righting wrongs is in a large-scale policy change for vaccines.”
According to the Air Force officer, “We are not in a place to fire tons of people, nor do we need to.” He agreed that investigations need to be done, but said, “our [military] community is asking way too much, taking a major win [with the Trump administration only to] squander it with a lot of unreasonable requests that will only alienate the administration.”
Having survived the COVID era with the ability to continue serving his country, the Air Force officer said, “It can’t always be perfect, and if I’ve learned anything from this fight, you have to take small wins by baby steps and make influential friends in the process, even if they don’t agree on your end state.”
The Air Force officer stressed his views do not represent those of the Department of Defense or Department of the Air Force.
Regarding the series of questions submitted to Scheller by this reporter, the Air Force officer said he is particularly interested in knowing how service members can be assured that a similar illegal and harmful mandate will not happen again, as it did in both the anthrax and COVID-19 eras.
“While I share the Department of Defense’s desire to move forward,” he acknowledged, “I would like to see some significant increases in medical freedom in the DoD.” For example, he noted, “There’s no reason to lose service members over a flu shot or a Japanese encephalitis vaccine.”
Finally, Gen. Mike Flynn, former national security adviser at the start of Donald Trump’s first term as president, just posted on X about an open letter, titled “Declaration of Military Accountability,” having been officially entered into the Congressional Record. Signed by 231 active service members and veterans, the letter demands accountability over the Defense Department’s highly controversial enforcement of the now-rescinded COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
The signatories state, “In the coming years, thousands within our network will run for Congress and seek appointments to executive branch offices, while those of us still serving on active duty will continue to put fulfilling our oaths ahead of striving for rank or position.
“For those who achieve the lawful authority to do so, we pledge to recall from retirement the military leaders who broke the law and will convene courts-martial for the crimes they committed.”
