Roughly 230 troops who left the U.S. military rather than get the COVID-19 vaccine have reupped — fewer than 3% of the thousands eligible under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s policies to encourage them to return.
A Pentagon official said Thursday that the Defense Department has “welcomed back more than 230 warfighters,” and the Departments of the Army, Navy and Air Force continue to work with more than 600 service members who have expressed interest.
The official did not provide a breakdown of the returnees by service.
According to the Defense Department’s web site on COVID-19 reinstatement, more than 8,700 service members were involuntarily separated for refusing the immunization after they were ordered in 2021 to get the vaccine.
Data compiled by the services in December 2022 — days before the mandate was lifted by law — showed the figure was closer to 8,400 and included 3,717 Marines, 2,041 Navy sailors, 1,841 Army soldiers and 834 Air Force and Space Force members.
Eligible service members have been allowed to rejoin the service since 2023. In January 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order allowing them to come back with “full back pay and benefits.”
Under Pentagon policy, those eligible receive back pay, allowances and any bonuses they would have earned had they stayed in the military, minus income, VA benefits and separation payments they received in the interim.
Hegseth ordered the services in December to review all the discharge cases to determine whether members were entitled for upgrades of their discharge characterizations from General (Under Honorable Conditions) to Honorable.
In March, the department extended the deadline to those interested in rejoining the service by a year, until April 1, 2027, and it cut the active-duty return to service obligation from four years to two.
“Maybe, for some, four years felt like too much given what had been done to them. We hope two entices warriors of conscience to come back,” Hegseth said in a video posted on the social media platform X.
The Defense Department announced Wednesday that it planned to convene a panel to study the decision to require the COVID-19 vaccine and will declassify and release materials related to the mandate.
The National Academy of Public Administration, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that studies management and organization, is conducting an after-action review at the request of the Pentagon, with a report expected by the end of the year.
No surveys have been conducted of the personnel who were involuntarily separated regarding why they have not returned to service. Officials told the Associated Press last year that many troops “have moved on with their lives.”
Patricia Kime is a senior writer covering military and veterans health care, medicine and personnel issues.
