American Family News spoke to Air Force Col. (Ret.) Rob Maness, a former bomber squadron commander, vice wing commander, and wing commander who served more than 30 years in the U.S. military. He offered his reaction to last week’s decision to settle U.S. Navy SEALs 1-26 v. Biden in favor of service members who refused COVID-19 vaccine mandates on religious objection grounds.
While many are touting the decision as a win against the Navy, the former commander argues that until all affected service members have accountability, the settlement is “nothing more than wind blowing.” Those service members, he tells AFN, “cannot move on” until they have the assurance that a similar incident will not happen again.
“Without some accountability, it will indeed happen again,” Maness warns. “Making the promise not to do it again and offering to better train commanders are both empty promises.”
Maness acknowledges that military leadership can make “imperfect decisions” on occasion.
“But the tyrannical enforcement of the [COVID-19] shot was not merely an imperfect decision, but an intentional decision that violated the law, the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (RFRA), and the First Amendment,” he argues.
He sees holding accountable those who implemented and enforced the so-called vaccination as the only solution.
“There has to be accountability on the leadership that made these decisions and that gave these directives,” Maness states. “[I suspect that] every service secretary was given that order by someone – and those service secretaries verbally gave those orders not to approve religious exemptions to their general and flag officers.”
He adds: “… The only way you could see consistent policy like this applied the same way in nearly every circumstance [is if] the order came down from the top.”
Maness suggests the following: Every flag officer and general officer who has retired should be called back to active duty and – along with those who are currently serving – be investigated to determine if they violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) by implementing an illegal order to mandate the injection.
“Under the legal construct of the UCMJ, if they implemented and enforced the shot, they should be held accountable through court-martial or some form of non-judicial punishment at minimum,” he asserts. “Because if no one is held accountable, this will happen again – and it could be worse the next time.”
The retired Air Force officer points out Congress passes the UCMJ, thereby possessing the ultimate authority over the legal system under which the Department of Defense operates day to day.
“An investigation of leadership has to go deep, because the lives of tens of thousands of service members were affected by an experimental shot that should have never been forced upon the people protecting our country,” Maness notes. “At some point, Congress will have to weigh in and seek accountability if they ever want to rebalance the system, because the Department of Defense is essentially getting away with murder here.”
Nearly 36,000 people have joined a group of 231 service members and veterans in support of the Declaration of Military Accountability, which continues to seek accountability to military leadership for the “irreparable harm” caused by the COVID-19 shot. Maness is an original signatory on the declaration.
