
Connecticut Army National Guard Sgt. 1st Class Sara Landon prepares COVID-19 vaccine doses April 1, 2021, in Morton Hall Gymnasium at Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton, Connecticut. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Tristan B. Lotz)
A 20-year-old man who was forced out of the U.S. Army National Guard for refusing the mandated COVID vaccination received a memo from the Army inviting him to return to duty — but also informing him that should he not return, he "will be considered Absent Without Leave (AWOL)" and be subject to court martial proceedings.
The bizarre Feb. 1 Army memo (shown below), which comes after Congress compelled the U.S. Armed Forces to end their controversial COVID vaccination mandates, caught the attention of conservative journalist Daniel Horowitz, who wrote about it in the Blaze, where he is a senior editor. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin rescinded the military's vaccination mandates Jan. 10.
Advertisement - story continues below

Army memo sent to 20-year-old man who was forced out of the National Guard last year after refusing the experimental COVID vaccine. (Image courtesy the Blaze)
Horowitz describes the man who received the memo as follows: "Last May, a 20-year-old infantryman in a state guard unit who is the son of one of my podcast listeners, among thousands of others who chose not to inject the gene therapy, had his gear confiscated and was suspended from service. He never heard from his unit commander since then and had obviously moved on with his life, making immutable career changes.
TRENDING: Nobel Peace Prize for Trump?
"It was sad and tragic that he had to abort his military career on account of a shot that even the government concedes can cause myocarditis, particularly for young males, but it was a decision he was forced to accept."
WND is now on Trump's Truth Social! Follow us @WNDNews
Advertisement - story continues below
The Army memo, titled, "Notification of Return to Duty Requirements for Soldiers Not Fully Vaccinated for COVIV-19," reads in part:
1... I am notifying your that you are authorized to resume participation in regular drills, training and other duties under Title 32....
3. You are authorized to return to duty immediately.
4. You are directed to return to duty NLT [no later than] 20 March 2023.
6. If you fail to participate in training on or after 20 March 2023 without an approved STA or other exemption you will be considered [AWOL] and may become subject to MCMJ or other adverse administrative actions.
Following Austin's congressionally mandated reversal on COVID vaccinations, the National Guard Bureau issued a memo Jan. 18 stating, "In coordination with the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness ... and the Secretaries of the Army and Air Force, all currently serving nonfederalized Army National Guard and Air National Guard members who are not fully vaccinated for COVID-19, but are otherwise qualified and eligible are no longer prohibited from, and may be directed to resume participation in drills, training and/or other duty conducted under Title 32...."
Horowitz writes that it is "scandalous for the unelected National Guard leadership to take a statute passed by Congress and signed by the president terminating the vaccine mandate, and then order those cast away to return against their will. And to add insult to injury, there is no back pay.
"It’s true that Congress didn’t require back pay, but if the military wants to get the castaways back into the service, military leaders are obligated to negotiate with them and obtain their consent. Are we now going to allow the wayward military leadership to destroy the lives of these young former soldiers twice?" he writes.
Advertisement - story continues below
Last June, Fox News reported that up to 40,000 Army National Guard soldiers, about 13 percent of the force, opted not get the mandated COVID vaccine, as the July 1, 2022 deadline requiring that they be vaccinated approached.
Since then, the safety of the shots has only come further into question, as a rash of mostly young males, including professional athletes, have died suddenly, leading to wide speculation that many of the "excess deaths" worldwide compared to pre-COVID years were caused by the experimental mRNA vaccines.

Are ex-military members still being punished for refusing a COVID shot now widely suspected of causing the sudden deaths of young, seemingly healthy males like this 25-year-old Belgian soccer player? (Courtesy Twitter / The Blaze)
EDITOR'S NOTE: Long the world's most Christian nation, America today is being taken over by a new "official" national religion, one being imposed on the entire populace by every major societal institution, from government, media and big tech, to academia, entertainment and business.
Advertisement - story continues below
This new state religion is Wokeism. "Going woke" conjures up visions of someone claiming to be acutely sensitive ("awake") to "systemic social and political injustice." And not just alleged bigotry against blacks, but toward every other "minority" as well, from LGBT folk – especially everything transgender and "nonbinary" – to "undocumented immigrants." All of them, being VICTIMS, intrinsically more virtuous than the shameful oppressor class: primarily heterosexual white males.
This new "woke" consciousness has turned America upside-down – from the nationwide Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots in 2020, to tearing down of historic monuments, to demanding multi-million-dollar reparation payments for blacks, to appointing transgenders as top government officials, to rampant reverse discrimination in every area of life, to the U.S. military imposing mandatory "diversity training" and transgender pronoun use on all personnel, causing recruitment to disastrously plummet.
Yet there is hope. Being "saved" – which in Wokeism is called being "woke" – is largely a matter of worshipping victimhood by becoming an "ally" and "defender" of all the many victim classes, and a determined enemy of the straight white male oppressor class. Thus, "joining the righteous" as an ally – even if one is cursed to be a straight white male – opens the door mercifully for salvation, even to the most wretched.
Advertisement - story continues below
That is the power of the religion of Wokeism. And it's explored as never before in the February 2023 issue of WND's critically acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine. If you've ever wondered, for example, exactly how the most radical elements in American society are successfully pressuring the biggest corporations into adopting the most outrageous and immoral policies imaginable, even when doing so permanently damages and devalues the company, the stunning answers are in this issue of Whistleblower, titled "WOKEISM: AMERICA'S OFFICIAL STATE RELIGION."
Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].
SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!