NDAA 2024: Congress Must Act to Hold DoD Accountable for Harms to Military

By The Whistleblower Report Editor, Elizabeth Lee Vliet, MD, with guest military expert Col. Tom Rempfer, USAF (Ret.)

Congress has the duty under the United States Constitution to be the civilian oversight of the US Military and Department of Defense (DoD).  Yet with the latest National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) language, set to be passed in December before Christmas recess, Congress has once again failed to require the Department of Defense they oversee to reinstate and correct the discharge records for those military service members unlawfully terminated for exercising their legal right to refuse the experimental COVD-19 shots. 

The American people have been misled and deceived by media stories misrepresenting that the COVID vaccine mandate has been rescinded, therefore all is back to normal.  That is far from the truth.  US service members discharged unlawfully for refusing the experimental COVID shots have not been reinstated in the military, nor have general discharges been upgraded properly to fully HONORABLE discharge as was required by the intent of legislative directives from Congress to the DoD.  It is a travesty, and has seriously eroded America’s military readiness and our national security.

Congress is repeating historical mistakes made during the mandate for the Anthrax experimental vaccine 25 years ago. Today’s members of Congress should evaluate historic interactions with the DoD to ensure Capitol Hill is not being manipulated by the military as has occurred in previous decades.

In the 2024 NDAA, similar to 2023 NDAA, Congress’s weak language and continued polite requests to the Department of Defense have not produced any action that helps to restore our military service members rights under the UCMJ and the US Constitution.

The Whistleblower Report explores with retired USAF Colonel Thomas Rempfer the language of the 2024 NDAA, how it compares to the previous 2023 NDAA, and what needs to be strengthened to ensure that constructive action is required of the DoD for restitution and repair of the financial, medical and career damage to our service members.

As one example, the 2024 NDAA language (see sections 526-528, and 725) proposes the DoD “shall consider reinstating” troops wrongfully discharged over the illegal COVID-19 injection mandates.  The 2023 NDAA’s Joint Explanatory request had the same polite request, but the DoD has so far ignored these “requests.”  Congress actually has the authority under the Constitution to order the DoD to comply. It is clear from DoD stalling and failure to act that an order from Congress is what is urgently needed. 

The Military Advisory Council and medical team for the Foundation, as well as our guest military veteran on the show today, urge Congress to be more explicit in the 2024 NDAA and specify that the DoD “shall reinstate” unlawfully terminated service members. 

The DoD, across many decades, has proven culturally incapable of remedying errors due to its history of illegal policies, e.g., the illegal anthrax vaccine mandate. Instead, the Congress must exercise the constitutional imperative for civilian control of the military and send the message to the DoD that the legislature will not tolerate our volunteer service members at the bottom of the chain of command being held punished and penalized by errors and illegal policies of DoD’s senior leaders.

A 1994 Senate Report, SR 103-97, documented Congress’ historic awareness of the DoD’s inability to resurvey its judgements in matters related to our Veteran’s health. SR 103-97, a report authored by Sen. John D. Rockefeller and the Veteran’s Health Committee, captured the DoD’s history: “For at least 50 years, DOD has intentionally exposed military personnel to potentially dangerous substances, often in secret.”

The committee found that the “DOD has repeatedly failed to comply with required ethical standards when using human subjects in military research during war or threat of war.” It discovered that the “DOD has demonstrated a pattern of misrepresenting the danger of various military exposures that continues today.”

Sen. Rockefeller’s colleague, Sen. Richard Shelby, similarly discovered, “While I have not yet determined the reason for this apparent aversion to full disclosure by DOD, the staff working on this issue from our committee has been constantly challenged by the Department’s evasiveness, inconsistency, and reluctance to work toward a common goal here.” He warned that “when dealing with the Department of Defense on this issue, you have to ask the right question to receive the right answer. I do not believe they understand that we are only seeking the truth in a way to help our veterans.”

Based on this rather sordid history of the DoD actions documented over many years in previous reports, Colonel Rempfer and many other veterans are calling for the public to contact Congressional representatives to urge that Congress fulfill its Constitutional duty to reinstate and immediately correct service members’ records to upgraded characterizations of a discharge for our troops that were wrongfully discharged over the illegal COVID-19 mandates. Discharges should be unilaterally upgraded to fully honorable for all troops, without application, in order to ensure there are no “inequities,” as previously recognized by the DoD. 

Col Rempfer paints a picture of the unhealthy ongoing ethical dilemma wherein the DoD is historically granted undue discretion and deference in matters of national defense, but then in turn the department abuses its power by violating the laws that our Congress put on the books in order to protect our troop’s health rights.

According to Col Rempfer, it “strains credulity to have some troops with General discharges, some with fully Honorable, for the same circumstances — i.e., all for invoking their legal right of prior consent in accordance with the requirements of 10 USC 1107a.” That law required our troops to be granted their prior consent for unapproved emergency use authorized (EUA) inoculations.

Since that prior consent did not occur with the mandate, in violation of the law and the Defense Secretaries’ directive, all troops deserve immediate fully Honorable characterizations of discharge, restoration of educational benefits, and the right to be reinstated, with full restitution, into the armed forces upon request, and without further delay.

While the Congress currently proposes that corrections are “solely based on the failure of such former member to obey a lawful order,” the reality is that the order was unlawful, and in direct violation of 10 USC 1107a. The order also specifically violated the express requirements of the Secretary of Defense (SecDef) directive for the COVID19 vaccine mandate implementation, which required fully approved and properly labeled COVID-19 injections be given.

The SecDef directive guaranteed: “mandatory vaccination against COVID-19 will only use COVID-19 vaccines that receive full licensure from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in accordance with FDA-approved labeling and guidance.” But there were never any fully FDA-approved COVID shots provided to the troops throughout the entire period the mandate was in effect. The only COVID injections available to military and civilians in the USwere unapproved Emergency Use Authorized (EUA) products, which under federal law and the US Constitution cannot be mandated.

Colonel Rempfer’s explained the DoD’s Manual for Courts-Martial – Article 90, that deals with “Disobeying superior commissioned officer,” and the “Lawfulness of the order.” That Uniform Code of Military Justice provision states that the “Inference of lawfulness…does not apply to a patently illegal order.”

Colonel Rempfer’s advocacy for the wrongfully punished troops contends that the COVID-19 mandate was a patently illegal order due to the implementation requirements of the SecDef’s directive being violated, i.e., no FDA-approved product was ever available, and therefore the program required prior consent from each service member, per federal law 10 USC 1107a. 

Colonel Rempfer points out that the DoD had previously properly ensured prior consent before the “approval” by FDA that was immediately followed by their reissuance of the EUA, since no approved product was available. He argues that the mandate was patently illegal, since the specific tenets of the DoD directive were violated, and the pre-“approval” conduct by the DoD demonstrated they knew the requirements of the law. 

Colonel Rempfer asks Congress to review the issue and the history of similar actions by the DoD, and actually investigate the possibility that just because the DoD deems an order “lawful” does not mean it is or was. He points to the history of the DoD anthrax vaccine mandate where the DoD contended for years that the anthrax vaccine mandate order was lawful only to have that order declared illegal by the federal courts and DoD conduct deemed “not substantially justified.” The sole congressional report, HR 106-556, on the issue found the vaccine “unproven” and ruled that the mandate violated the law, 10 USC 1107.

Col Rempfer’s recommendations for Congress include that the current 2024 NDAA should be modified by Congress to assert firm constitutionally required civilian control over the military. Col Rempfer asserts that this overdue leadership by the Congress is the best means to halt the pattern of willfully violating the law by the senior leaders of the DoD. 

Col Rempfer recommends that the legislative dictate should direct unilateral corrections, without application, immediately upon passage, and should be retroactive to the improper discharge dates. No caveats should be allowed, e.g., “if such discharge or dismissal was solely based on the failure of such former member to obey,” in order to preclude manufactured patterns of misconduct tangentially related to the core refusal. To outflank those punitive personnel “shadow policies,” Col Rempfer suggests that the entirety of the professional service record should be expunged if refusal to obey the patently illegal order was core issue leading to discharge.

Col Rempfer expresses hope that once the current members of Congress study the historic patterns of DoD misconduct, as well as their documented manipulations of Congress pertaining to the health rights of our troops, Congress will also execute reforms to remove the DoD Congressional Liaison Office lobbying arm on Capitol Hill, as well as require DoD liaisons to wear uniforms while working in the halls of Congress. 

The suggested NDAA modifications, as well as those suggested reforms, will curtail DoD’s inordinate interference with congressional activities and will also ensure that our elected members realize the extent of the DoD’s presence on Capitol Hill. The depth and breadth of the DoD’s unhealthy influence into the decision-making processes of the Congress must be halted.

Disclaimer – Colonel Rempfer’s “views do not imply endorsement by the DOD, at this time.”  For additional information – https://hoping4justice.org/covid

For more information go to Truth for Health Foundation website www.TruthForHealth.org. Download our Vaccine Injury Treatment Guide, file a Citizens Vaccine Injury Report, check our medical and legal resources for help, sign up for newsletter alerts and join in the fight for medical freedom on all fronts. 

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