US: Over 200 Service Members, Veterans Pledge To Hold Military Leaders Accountable For Vaccine Mandate
Authored by J.M. Phelps via The Epoch Times
More than 200 active service members and veterans have signed an open letter seeking accountability over the alleged harm caused by the Department of Defense’s (DOD) implementation of the now-rescinded COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
The open letter, published on Jan. 1, is directed to the American people but names specific senior military leaders who the signers claim enabled lawlessness and betrayed the Constitution.
Some of the leaders specifically named in the letter include former and current joint chiefs of staff, service academy commandants, service inspectors general, and service surgeon generals.
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.”
A number of the signatories are veterans who are now running for Congress and state-level political offices. These veterans also pledged to introduce legislation to seek accountability by reducing the alleged perpetrators’ retirement income to zero.
Many of the 231 signers of the letter are still on active duty. Several said they are taking on significant personal risk to stand up for what they believe in and to defend their unalienable rights that they feel have been trampled.
Sources spoke to Robert A. Green, Jr., an active-duty Navy commander and author of “Defending the Constitution Behind Enemy Lines.” As the author of the open letter, he employed the framework and phrasing of Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence to address what he described as the current crisis of trust in the country’s military.
He and the other signatories hope to “rebuild trust through accountability” and signed the open letter as a way to emulate the founding fathers when they mutually pledged to each other their lives, fortunes, and sacred honour in the Declaration of Independence.
“Where our situation departs from the signers of the Declaration of Independence is that we do not seek separation,” Cmdr. Green said. “We do not want to be separated from the Constitution or from what was handed down to us at such a great cost. Instead of separation, we want restoration through accountability.”
As a result, he said, the letter may be more appropriately called a “Declaration of Military Accountability.”
Bradley Miller, a former U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who previously served as a battalion commander in the 101st Airborne Division, said the allusions to the Declaration of Independence in the letter are “deliberate and meaningful.” According to him, the signatories of the letter “believe that we have suffered a long train of abuses that has come to a head with the unlawful COVID-19 shot mandate.”
“We would be negligent in our duty to uphold our oaths to the Constitution as well as negligible in our loyalty to our countrymen if we permitted the continued demise of one of our most hallowed institutions,” Mr. Miller said.
“For the senior leaders named, and for the thousands who were not named but who are equally complicit, I hope this [letter] is a wake-up call,” Cmdr. Green said. He went on to note that at the highest levels of military leadership, the decision-making processes are largely comprised of risk analysis and risk mitigation.
“Due to the Feres Doctrine [which prohibits service members from suing the federal government for wrongful injury or death] and the inappropriate deference paid to the Department of Defence by the legislative and judicial branches of our government, our senior leaders have rarely felt any personal risk for their decisions,” he said.
Cmdr. Green hopes the letter solidifies that “personal financial and legal risk is now part of the analysis our senior military leaders must take before deciding on policies that have implications for service members’ constitutional rights.”
