Defense Department still won’t admit COVID shot mandate was unlawful

Like thousands of others, Jessica Sheffield, a former United States Navy lieutenant commander, was forcibly separated from the service in 2022 for refusing the COVID jab.

When Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin mandated the COVID-19 shot in August 2021, Sheffield was concerned not just with the experimental vaccine’s safety, but with the legality of such an order. After careful consideration, she decided to take her oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution seriously, telling WorldNetDaily: “I was absolutely going to do the right thing no matter what, and in this situation, it meant that I was not going to follow this unlawful order.”

“I was vocal to my commander, chief of staff, and the command doc in private,” she said, “about not taking the ‘vaccine,’ because it was experimental, thereby, it was also unlawful. The command doc, in a one-on-one meeting with me, wouldn’t even put his words behind the order, claiming it was ‘coming from higher up,’ which was especially alarming,” she said.

“Although I avoided the subject in casual office conversation for professional reasons,” she told WND, “many co-workers would seek me out and agree with me in private, and lament that although they also saw the order as unlawful, they felt they had to go through with it to keep their job.”

Sheffield brought to the attention of Navy Vice Admiral Robert Gaucher the reality that many members of the command – all holding security clearances – were “lying out of fear,” which she considered a violation of their oath. For this, she was called “disgruntled” and accused of “stirring up trouble.”

Through the experience, she learned a lot about some of the Navy’s current leadership, she told WND: “They basically showed me that they’re willing to lie for money, or worse, they don’t see a forced experimental injection that was actively injuring sailors as unlawful. They put their own selfish needs ahead of standing up for what was right.”

The most concerning issue, Sheffield added, was that “\many in leadership seemed to truly believe the order was lawful, and still do.”

After meeting with a Navy chaplain to consider requesting a religious accommodation, she learned, “You had to agree that the order was lawful to get the exemption.” For Sheffield, “that defeated the purpose of getting an exemption, considering it was an unlawful, experimental injection that was being offered in the first place.”

As she continued to refuse the shot, she recalled, “there was a lot of lying on behalf of my command, efforts designed to trick me into resigning.” Every document placed in front of her, calling for her resignation, she refused to sign before editing the text to point out that she was being forcibly separated from the Navy. “They really did not want to be the ones to force me out, they wanted me to quit, and I think it’s because they knew this wasn’t right,” she said.

So rather than being separated on May 25, 2022, for disobeying an unlawful order, Sheffield fought to have her DD-214 discharge papers state “COVID Injection Refusal” as the reason for her separation. “The official separation code still shows ‘Unacceptable Behavior,’ which I protested, but remain somewhat satisfied I was at least able to get the note including the COVID-injection refusal,” she told WND.

After the January 2023 rescission of the shot mandate, Sheffield submitted a request to the Board for Correction of Naval Records, or BCNR, on March 5, 2023 to be reinstated. Her reinstatement request also asked for the Department of Defense to admit to the unlawfulness of the 2021 mandate, acknowledge that retaliatory actions were taken against her, and cleanse any blemishes from her performance record. Unfortunately, her reinstatement would never occur.

After waiting a year, Sheffield said the BCNR altered her official record to state that she had voluntarily resigned, which was untrue. “They had also deleted all COVID-related retaliatory documents from my official record, and claimed that is what I had asked them to do,” she said.

“I contacted my congressman and, through him, demanded they stop deleting evidence and return my record to its unaltered state since they refused to reinstate me and acknowledge the unlawfulness of the order.”

Confessing she was “terrified” to discover a letter the Navy wrote to U.S. Rep. Bill Posey, R-Fla., Sheffield said “they lied about the nature of my initial BCNR request, claiming I had only asked them to delete COVID-related detrimental FITREPS (fitness reports), and called my assertions of their behavior ‘disingenuous.'” She fears “they’re quietly doing the same for everyone who was kicked out for COVID jab refusal, under the guise of ‘cleansing’ records of bad behavior.”

Sheffield submitted a second request to the Board for Correction of Naval Records on May 5 of this year: “I asked that my record remain untouched as evidence for an eventual reconciliation of this injustice,” she explained. “My re-submitted BCNR states that if they refuse to admit to the unlawfulness of the COVID injection order and restore my commission, my record must remain untampered until things can be reconciled.”

“The jab requirement was nothing less than a purge of all those willing to uphold their oath and protect their sailors and others from the unlawful order, and the proof is now bare for all to see,” Sheffield told WND. “After almost a year of deliberation, I now have 15 pages on official letterhead of the BCNR doubling down on the assertion that the jab order was lawful and that I was right to be removed.” That, in addition to altering her paperwork, told her “they were trying to cover up the entire experience, as if it had never happened.”

“With this ongoing BCNR trouble, it feels like the DOD as we used to know it is effectively gone,” Sheffield lamented. For her, it’s “just a mercenary force now, one whose loyalty lies with keeping their paycheck, rather than upholding the sacred oath undertaken for the protection of the United States of America and its founding Constitution.”

Like thousands of other service members and veterans who desire the same, she questions whether there will there ever be accountability for the wrongs committed against her and the countless sailors who were failed by their leaders, with the implementation and enforcement of the COVID-19 shot and its many negative repercussions.

Nearly 38,000 have signed a petition to support 231 service members and veterans who signed on to the Declaration of Military Accountability to “hold accountable military leaders who failed to follow the law when their leadership and moral courage was most desperately needed.” What’s more, they have pledged “to recall from retirement the military leaders who broke the law and will convene courts-martial for the crimes they committed.”