Vaxxed Army pilot facing separation from military after denied promotion over COVID vaccine mandate

A vaccinated Army pilot, who was reprimanded after his initial hesitation to receive the COVID-19 shot, is still being denied promotion and could be separated from the military in September.

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Brandon Budge in the 7th Infantry Division's 16th Combat Aviation Brigade, who has served in the military for over 20 years, may be forced out of the Army for adverse actions in his file that prevented him from receiving promotions. 

The brigade to which he belongs was formed in battle in January 1968 and first activated at Marble Mountain, Danang in the northernmost part of South Vietnam. The unit uses the moniker "Raptors" and consists of approximately 2,500 soldiers, and is the largest Aviation Brigade in the Army.

Wants to continue his service

Budge is now asking the Army Board for Correction of Military Records to remove the adverse actions from his record so that he may receive his promotion and remain in the service.

While Budge never said he wouldn't get the COVID vaccine, he was initially hesitant to receive it, asking questions about the lawfulness of the mandate, inquiring about religious accommodation requests, and hoping to wait until at least 90 days had passed since he contracted the virus before getting the shot, Budge's attorney, R. Davis Younts, previously told Just the News in October 2022.

Budge came down with COVID in March 2021 and was supposed to deploy to South Korea that September. However, if he wasn't vaccinated, he was told, he would have to be quarantined for two weeks. His wife was pregnant at the time with their seventh child, so he wanted to avoid quarantining so he wouldn't miss the birth of their son. 

The adverse actions affecting his continued service are centered on claims his records were falsified without his knowledge to show that he had received the COVID vaccine before he actually got the shot.

Towards the end of summer 2021, Budge went to a clinic for another matter, but the medic, thinking she was helping him, falsified his record without his knowledge to show that he received the COVID vaccine, Younts said. Budge got the shot soon after and learned that his records showed he had already received it.

Secret investigation ended with an incorrect conclusion

He inquired about the inaccurate record and was told that the medic was under investigation, but that he wasn't. It turned out he was actually under investigation, but investigators didn't inform him or read him his rights when they interviewed him, according to Younts. Because of the investigation, Budge was flagged and not deployed to South Korea. 

The investigation into the falsified vaccine record didn't take into account Budge's evidence or witness testimony proving that he received the vaccine, said his wife, Jessica Hill-Budge, and Younts. Despite this, the investigation concluded in November 2021, and the next month, Budge received a General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand (GOMOR) for behavior unbecoming of an officer after getting a "flag" (Suspend Favorable Personnel Actions) in a referred Officer Evaluation Report.

The "flag" prevents Budge from receiving a promotion or retiring, and the following February, when Budge was due to receive a promotion to Chief Warrant Officer 4, he was denied.

In January 2022, Budge filed an inspector general complaint about the handling of the investigation, but nothing was done about it, Younts said. Budge's wife says he was told by his battalion commander that there were "gaping holes" in the investigation and that mistakes had been made. The commander purportedly told her that he hoped future investigations would be conducted better because this was one of the worst he'd seen.

Complaints up the chain of command not answered

Budge was told in February 2022 that there would be a Flying Evaluation Board, which would determine whether he could keep his wings, meaning remain able to fly. That same month, Budge was supposed to receive a promotion to Chief Warrant Officer 4, but because he was flagged due to the falsified vaccine records, he never received it.

In March 2022, Budge filed another inspector general complaint, but this time, it was over the board. The board was picked by Budge's brigade commander in response to the January complaint, Younts alleges, so Budge filed the second inspector general complaint for reprisal and retaliation.

The board accepted the evidence that Budge provided them and in April 2022 exonerated him regarding the falsified vaccine records, recommending that he keep his wings.

Despite this, Budge's chain of command still wasn't allowing him to fly, Hill-Budge told Just the News in February 2023. He was finally allowed to resume his training to fly in early 2023 for the first time in a year and a half.

Now, Budge is requesting that the Army Board for Correction of Military Records (ABCMR) remove the adverse actions from his file so he will be able to receive a promotion and not be separated from the military.

Younts told Just the News on Tuesday that Budge was encouraged to quickly file a request to the ABCMR, which he initially did earlier this year without the assistance of legal counsel and before Younts represented him, and it was denied last month.

His request was “denied shockingly fast,” Younts said, as it “normally takes a long time for it to go through...I don’t know why the board prioritized his case and denied it so quickly,” he added.

Younts said that Budge had been “one of the senior ranking people in his unit not vaccinated” and was threatened over it.

Caught in the middle of conflicting recommendations

After the Flying Evaluation Board exonerated Budge and recommended that he keep his wings, his “chain of command tried to reverse the decision, which failed, and now he’s been in a back-and-forth to get his record fixed so he can promote and keep serving because of a shortage of experienced Blackhawk pilots in the Army,” according to Budge’s attorney.

The Army has for years been hamstrung by the problem of finding or retaining pilots like Budge, according to Army Times. “Although the numbers appear positive in aggregate, there exists an imbalance between a surplus of senior aviators and a shortage of nearly 700 junior aviators across the three components from required manning levels,” Army spokesman Matthew Leonard told Army Times in a 2019 statement.

Younts said that he was “submitting a request to the Army Board of Corrections for reconsideration” on Budge’s behalf.

“One of the reasons that he may have been denied was because he submitted” his request “before [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth’s memo about relief, and the undersecretary’s guidance to the boards, so his initial submission may have been bad timing,” Younts explained.

“Even though” Budge “didn’t get the decision until after the policy memo came out, it looks like it was voted on before the guidance was issued,” he added.

Test of whether Hegseth's policies will be followed

The memos that Younts was referring to include the defense undersecretary for personnel’s guidance in April that allows former service members to be reinstated after leaving the military over the COVID vaccine mandate and Hegseth’s memo later that month directing Pentagon officials to reinstate service members affected by the mandate and remove any related disciplinary actions from their record.

“This case is very important to Budge because he needs to get relief for himself and his family, but it’s also a really important test of the new policy that’s been issued – whether they follow policy and act fast enough to grant relief, since come September, it may be too late” because it’s “harder to grant relief because you’re forced out,” Younts said.

“This is one that everyone’s going to be watching and waiting – is the policy guidance going to be followed and work?” he added. “This case is COVID adjacent,” as Budge “wouldn’t be here if not for the COVID mandate – it never would’ve happened.”

Budge “never received an adverse action for not getting the COVID shot,” but he got it “after doing everything he could to fight against it,” Younts said. “But they were unrelenting – even though he had requests pending” to be exempted from the vaccine mandate, “they didn’t care.

“This takes on an ugly appearance of retaliation and reprisal because of his rank and position,” since he caused “a stir over being forced to get the COVID shot,” Younts said. “They have never relented or given up even though it’s clear that he didn’t do anything to his record or ask anyone to. Why would he do that when he got the shot?”

Because Budge “was passed over for a promotion twice, the Army has a policy that when that happens, then you’re going to be pushed out. He’s retirement-eligible, he has retirement, but he could serve for several more years,” he added.

Budge is “now in a fight to stay on because the COVID mandate has gone away, and with new leadership in place and a pilot shortage, he is willing, able, and ready to continue serving. Now, his record is haunting him,” Younts said.

“The reconsideration request is to the same board that denied it originally, before” the new DOD policies began, and the board “interpreted everything very narrowly, and didn’t consider COVID-adjacent aspects of the case,” but now Younts said he’s “hoping they will, and understand the types of relief.”

He added that they are going to ask the board for “reconsideration and continue to pursue relief through senior Army leadership and other requests to the Office of the Secretary of the Army to take action to make this right. The secretary doesn’t have to wait for the board.”

The 7th Infantry Division previously told Just the News that they couldn't provide any details on the investigation into Budge because it's privileged information. The division didn’t respond to a request for comment.