Constitutional rights stay with service members in uniform, Brad Miller says as ‘Duty to Disobey’ opens nationwide

DENVER — A documentary about the service members who refused the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate opens in theaters across the country on Tuesday, June 30, and the former Army officer at its center says its lesson belongs to every American. Brad Miller, a former U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who resigned his commission rather than enforce the mandate, said “Duty to Disobey” tells the story of troops who paid a steep price for their refusal and carries a civil-liberties message that extends well beyond the ranks. Service members do not surrender their constitutionally protected rights by putting on the uniform, Miller said on The Kim Monson Show, and the same principle protects every citizen.

Miller commanded a battalion in the 101st Airborne Division when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered all service members to be vaccinated in August 2021. He was relieved of command that October and resigned his commission in protest, ending more than 19 years of service in September 2022 and forfeiting his pension. The Pentagon rescinded the mandate in January 2023 after Congress directed it to do so in the NDAA FY2023.

Rights that travel with the uniform

Miller said the most critical message of the documentary is that military service does not strip away constitutional protection. “By signing on the dotted line and entering military service and putting on the uniform, you do not lose your constitutionally protected rights,” he said. He said the belief that “once you join you become government property” to the point of losing those rights “is not true,” and that the same protection belongs to everyone. “Obviously, it’s true for all citizens out there,” he said. The COVID years, he added, should teach the country to make sure “this kind of stuff never happens in our country again.”

Accountability has trailed the promise to bring troops back

The part of the story still unfinished, Miller said, is accountability. “This is where I think the Pentagon has misrepresented some of its efforts over the last year,” he said, pushing back on the impression that the matter is fully resolved. Miller recalled President Trump promising in his January 2025 inauguration speech to “bring everybody back” with “full back pay.” That promise was set down in Executive Order 14184, signed January 27, 2025, which directs the military to reinstate members discharged solely for refusing the vaccine and to restore their former rank with “full back pay, benefits, bonus payments, or compensation.” The order also makes that relief “subject to the availability of appropriations” and creates no legally enforceable right.

“What we have seen is that this process has been extremely slow and bureaucratically intensive,” Miller said. He said about 100,000 service members lost their careers because of the mandate, and that “only about 150, maybe a slightly higher number” have returned to service. The Pentagon’s official accounting measures a narrower category: nearly 8,000 active-duty and reserve members were involuntarily separated specifically for refusing the vaccine, according to the Department of War, which notes that many others left voluntarily when their enlistments ended. As of April 2026, nearly 170 had been reinstated or re-accessed, the department said, with more than 800 others expressing interest in returning.

The story reaches higher than one official

Miller urged Americans to look wider than any single figure as calls grow to compel testimony from former federal health officials. The COVID response, he said, “was clearly many years in planning and extends far beyond and far higher than Fauci.” He said the country should demand a full accounting. “This did not start with Fauci and it should not end with Fauci,” he said.

A duty that belongs to citizens

The film, a Children’s Health Defense production made in partnership with Tommey Burrowes Productions and endorsed by STARRS, recounts what Miller called “the unlawful COVID shot mandate that was implemented by the Pentagon in 2021” and the aftermath it continues to produce. Pam Long, who leads the military chapter of Children’s Health Defense, joined Miller on the program. Miller closed by returning to the role of the citizen. “We live in a Republic, and as a citizen of a Republic, we have a large duty on our shoulders,” he said, describing Americans as “the stakeholders of power and accountability.” Rights are constitutionally protected, he said, and keeping them requires showing up. “We can’t just sit on the couch and watch these things as they happen,” he said. “We have to get engaged. We have to get involved.”