The reevaluation was ordered and is being overseen by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Day‑to‑day implementation runs through the military departments and their Discharge Review Boards under guidance from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (USD(P&R)).
For this proactive reevaluation, eligible individuals are former members of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and Space Force (active‑duty and reserve components) who were: (1) involuntarily separated between Aug. 24, 2021, and Jan. 10, 2023, solely for refusing to comply with the Defense Department’s COVID‑19 vaccine mandate, and (2) given a general (under honorable conditions) discharge rather than an honorable discharge. DoD says about 8,700 service members were involuntarily discharged over the mandate, most with honorable discharges, and more than 4,000 with general discharges—roughly 900 of those have already been upgraded, leaving a little over 3,000 cases for this review.
According to DoD’s Dec. 10, 2025 guidance, each service secretary has 30 days to create and validate a list of all former members who meet the criteria for review. Those cases are then sent to the services’ Discharge Review Boards, which must complete the proactive reviews and issue written decisions to each individual within one calendar year of the memorandum. The boards review each file to confirm that the general discharge was solely for COVID‑19 vaccine refusal and, where appropriate, upgrade it to honorable.
For this new round of proactive reviews, affected former service members do not need to apply; the Secretary of War has directed the military departments to identify eligible individuals and review their records on their own. Veterans whose general discharge also reflected other misconduct or issues may not receive an automatic upgrade, but they can still apply directly to their service’s Discharge Review Board or Board for Correction of Military or Naval Records if they believe their records are erroneous or unjust.
When a general discharge is upgraded to honorable, that new characterization applies retroactively for benefits that depend on discharge status: an honorable discharge qualifies a veteran for programs such as the Post‑9/11 GI Bill, whereas a general discharge does not, and DoD explicitly frames these upgrades as a way to restore GI Bill eligibility that was lost because of general discharges for vaccine refusal. The Department of Veterans Affairs has said veterans whose discharges are upgraded can then file or refile claims for GI Bill education benefits, and related VA benefits will be adjudicated under standard rules once the upgraded DD‑214 is on file. By contrast, retroactive military pay, allowances, health‑care coverage and retirement‑service credit are provided only to former members who are formally reinstated under the separate COVID‑19 reinstatement policy, which corrects their records to show they were never discharged and awards back pay and associated benefits for the separation period.
DoD’s public description of this reevaluation focuses on upgrading discharge characterizations and, in its broader COVID‑19 remedial guidance, authorizing review boards to remove adverse personnel actions tied to the vaccine mandate; it does not specifically address changing security‑clearance determinations. Correcting a DD‑214, narrative reason for separation, or other adverse entries can indirectly improve a veteran’s record for future background checks or clearance reviews, but eligibility for a security clearance is still decided separately under the normal clearance‑adjudication process and is not automatically altered by a discharge upgrade alone.
For this reevaluation, DoD does not create a separate track based on religious, medical or other motives; the key eligibility test is whether the member was involuntarily discharged solely for refusing to comply with the COVID‑19 vaccine mandate. The department notes that tens of thousands sought medical or religious exemptions, but for discharge‑upgrade and reinstatement purposes former service members are treated the same so long as their separation was based only on vaccine refusal; those whose files also cite other grounds for separation fall outside the automatic review and must pursue relief case‑by‑case through the review boards.