NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—More than 130 Airmen and Guardians have returned to service after leaving the military rather than receive the COVID-19 vaccine. And more could follow, an Air Force official said.
Speaking at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference this week, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs Richard Anderson said that, as of Sept. 15, 137 individuals have applied for reinstatement so far, and 48 have been accepted. Another 86 have returned through the reaccession process, for a total of 134 service members have already rejoined the ranks.
The two routes back are distinct: Reinstatement is slower, requiring interested veterans must apply to the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records. If successful, the payoff is they may be eligible for back pay, bonuses, and other benefits. Reaccession, which is faster, skips the board process. A third option is to go through reaccession and only then apply for reinstatement after they have rejoined the ranks.
The Air Force and Space Force involuntarily separated about 600 Airmen and Guardsians for refusing the COVID shot: then-Undersecretary of the Air Force Gina Ortiz Jones pegged the number at 610 in early 2023, and the Air Force Review Boards Agency said it identified 595 cases in a review earlier this year.
But others chose to leave when their service commitment was up rather than be vaccinated, and they are eligible to rejoin as well. Thousands of Airmen and Guardians sought medical and religious exemptions and refused the mandatory shots in 2021 and 2022. But the number that left voluntarily before the mandate was lifted in early 2023 is unclear.
Since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, the Pentagon has made a concerted effort to make good on a campaign promise to restore those to service who departed because of the mandate, which was ordered by then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Current Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in April 2025 that his department was “welcoming actively back those warriors of conscience.”
Since then, the Pentagon has extended the deadline for applying until April 2027, and has reduced the minimum service obligation for those returning from four years to two.
Anderson and his team have also taken steps to ease the process for those who wish to return. In August, they announced medical processing and board reviews would take place simultaneously to speed the reinstatement process, and they hired case managers to help those seeking to return to service.
Photo by Craig Hudson, for Air & Space Forces Association
“We now, I think, have stabilized criteria and expectations,” Anderson said. “We have done a very sustained comms program to tell the affected universe that they are welcome back and welcome to apply … and we’ll continue to to advertise very heavily to get worthy Airmen and Guardians back in uniform.”
According to statistics compiled by the Department of the Air Force in December 2022, just before the COVID vaccine mandate was lifted by an act of Congress, 97.6 percent of the 490,000 members of the Active-Duty Air Force and Space Force, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve got fully vaccinated, leaving about 11,700 unvaccinated. The department noted approximately 1,080 religious and administration exemptions to the mandate at the time.
