Keeping Our Promise To Those Who Served

Thousands of American service members were put in an impossible position during the COVID-19 pandemic: receive the vaccine or leave the military. Thanks to the Biden administration’s misguided vaccine mandate, thousands of selfless men and women were forced out of the service before completing their careers, many of whom lost the ability to transfer their earned GI Bill benefits to their children. For military families who had planned their futures around those benefits, that opportunity was taken away overnight.

This is outright wrong and needs to be addressed. That’s why I introduced the COVID-19 Military Mandate Transparency Act to require the Department of Defense to determine and publicly disclose exactly how many service members were separated under the mandate and how many lost eligibility to transfer their GI Bill benefits.

Once we have this information, it will pave the way for my Patriots Over Politics Act to correct that injustice once and for all by allowing service members who were forced out under the vaccine mandate to regain the ability to transfer their GI Bill benefits to their children, provided they completed at least six years of service.

Our nation made a promise to the men and women who wore the uniform. Keeping that promise and correcting this injustice is the least we can do, and I will continue fighting to get these two bills across the finish line.