Another good man has been hounded out of the American military for standing by his Christian principles! John Frankman, a former Special Forces officer and a convert to Catholicism, resigned his commission last month. Explaining that his career had been blocked since he defied President Biden's order forcing Covid vaccines in the military, Frankman has spoken of his desire to be able to speak freely about the situation and his decisions:
"After years of pressure and the situation changing seemingly at a whim, I am separating from the Army. I am leaving because although the vaccine mandate is no longer in effect, it cost me the opportunity to teach and form cadets at West Point, cut my team leader time short, and cost me other career opportunities.
"At this point, I believe that God can use the gifts, talents, and passions He gave me to serve Him in a better way".
In 2020, Frankman served as a captain for the 7th Special Forces Group, leading 12 men. As all in his command already had COVID, discussions about the jab seemed strange to them. They thought they wouldn’t need it. For Frankman, the use of aborted fetal cells also served to give him pause, recalling during time he spent in seminary that to take the jab would be remote cooperation with evil.
Frankman recalls that the jab was “pushed incredibly hard on us.”
“Every single meeting you go to at the company level, battalion level, the first thing you report on is number of fully vaccinated, number of who’s received one dose, how many are sick,” he recounts, adding that everyone made the jab a “readiness issue.”
At one point Frankman told his men that he would neither penalize nor commend them for their decision to get the jab or not during evaluations, as per military policy, though this decision won his detachment the label of “the tinfoil hat team.” He also tells me about a conversation he had with his superiors, who warned him that he was “screwing up [his] career,” that if his team lost a mission, some of his men were going to be removed from the company, and that they would be given “unwanted assignments.”
“The bigger pressure for me was the policies that were in place,” Frankman continues. “So even though the mandate [was] not kicked in till August of 2021, they were making it a requirement for traveling to different training events, for deploying.”
Discussing how he discerned not to take the jab, Frankman says that he was asking God for light regarding what to do with it, at which point he found an article by Fr. Philip Wolfe, FSSP, that helped him to recognize the serious implications of the use of aborted fetal cells in the development of the jabs. He also tells me that he was “extremely blessed” for knowing good priests to guide him on his discernment regarding the jab.
According to Frankman, he was told by one priest that the issue with the jabs is not simply a grave matter regarding abortion, but also a grave matter with regard to prudence. Reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Frankman also found that a sin can be defined as any act that is contrary to reason. “If it’s just not reasonable or prudent to do so and you’re doing that, that’s just an act against reason,” Frankman explains. Upon praying about what he should do, Frankman elected not to take the jab.
John is very clear as to who is primarily to blame for all this: "I want to be fair to my leadership and those at 7SFG. Leaders at all levels felt immense pressure from President Biden and the general officers to get every soldier vaccinated. Furthermore, there was nothing legally, ethically, or medically clear about the vaccine or the mandate.
"To the extent that they could, they supported me in my situation, and from the majority, I didn’t experience any animosity. Other service members were not as fortunate. However, that does not totally remove their responsibility.
"All leaders could have and should have done more to resist the vaccine mandate. Especially Special Forces Green Berets who are selected for their critical thinking skills and trained to identify a psychological operation meant to influence the populace."