Former Troops Punished Over Vaccine Mandate Sue For Lost Wages
Former U.S. military members are suing the federal government for lost pay and benefits due to the Biden administration’s COVID vaccine mandate.
Speaking with Breitbart News, attorneys representing the former troops in three separate lawsuits explained that they plan to merge them into a class action lawsuit on behalf of all service members who were either kicked out or illegally ordered to stop drilling, which resulted in a loss of pay.
The troops are being represented by attorney Dale Saran, a retired Marine, and fellow attorneys Andy Meyer and Brandon Johnson.
According to Saran, the amount of lost pay is in the “billions.”
“It’s worth billions. That’s just flat-out. That’s what it is in backpay. It’s billions of dollars,” he told the outlet.
The three lawsuits have been filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which Saran described as a specialized court where illegal military discharges are heard.
“The Court of Claims has been around since the Reconstruction Era. It’s a very old court and kind of a weird one. But in any event, you can go there if you’ve got a claim and say, ‘Hey, I was illegally discharged, or the military did something to impede my pay,’ or whatever. The Court of Claims is where you go,” the attorney explained.
Saran estimated that roughly 80,000 to 100,000 U.S. military members, both active-duty and reservists, were impacted by the Biden administration’s COVID vaccine mandate. More than 8,000 active-duty service members were discharged over refusal to get the experimental jab, and tens of thousands of reservists were told not to drill anymore or switched to inactive status, according to Saran.
“They were basically [without] the benefit of any due process… They didn’t hold any administrative separation boards; they didn’t hold any hearings. They didn’t do any federal recognition boards; none of the administrative or judicial procedures were used. They just flat-out did it. And then…they got the Coast Guard to follow along, and they got a bunch of Coasties too,” Saran told Breitbart News.
One such member of the Coast Guard who has joined the lawsuit is Zach Loesch, who famously received a phone call from President Joe Biden thanking him for saving lives during Hurricane Ian. When Biden called, Loesch was two weeks away from being discharged over his refusal to take the COVID vaccine.
Saran further explained that the monetary damages being sought in the lawsuits aren’t just from lost backpay, but also from repayment of enlistment bonuses.
“Say you enlisted for five years, you got a bonus and $50,000…And then, now, they’re like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna inject you with this.’ You’re like, ‘Yo, that’s experimental. Like, that’s not actually licensed. And the defense secretary’s order was we’d only have to take licensed vaccines — that says experimental,’” the attorney explained, adding: “And they throw you out. Now it’s like, ‘Well…now you didn’t fulfill your obligation; give us back the grant.’”
“We got a bunch of those clients, too, guys getting money taken back,” he continued. “So not only did they throw them out — unceremoniously [and] wrongfully — now they’re…without a job instantly, no separations pay, none of that. And instead, they’re standing out in the cold, and worse yet, here comes the government…here comes the debt collectors. Now you owe us money,” Saran added.
He also pointed out that the Pentagon has the money in the budget to award backpay to these former troops, as it is already factored into the budget allocated by Congress annually.
“That’s money we’re saying was illegally kept,” Saran said. “That’s money that’s fundamentally — as far as I can tell — has been stolen by the DOD [Department of Defense].”
