An exemplary Air Force officer is being stripped of her hard-earned retirement after a Board of Inquiry abruptly shut the door on her career over vaccine mandates and bureaucratic indifference to her constitutional rights.
According to Gateway Pundit, Maj. Kim Bitter, an Air Force Reserve officer with nearly two decades of spotless service, now faces separation just short of qualifying for retirement. Her attorney, retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and former Judge Advocate General (JAG) officer Davis Younts, reviewed her record and stated plainly, She has had an outstanding career. No issues. No misconduct. Youll find nothing negative about her service. Her character and integrity have never been questioned.
Her ordeal underscores a broader and deeply troubling pattern: the militarys increasing tendency to treat the First Amendment as optional for the very men and women sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. Instead of protecting individual rights, commanders and legal officers appear more focused on enforcing ever-expanding medical mandates, even when those mandates collide with religious liberty and medical judgment.
During the COVID-19 era, Maj. Bitter requested a medical exemption from the shot based on a preexisting health condition, supported by a physician who advised her not to take it. The military rejected that request, and when she also sought a religious accommodation, that too was denied, a double blow that marked what her supporters see as the first clear violation of her rights.
Younts explained just how close she was to securing the retirement she had earned through years of service and sacrifice. Major Kim Bitter was literally eight pointstwo drill periods away from having 20 good years of service, he said, noting that she was a single drill weekend away from retirement eligibility in the Air Force Reserve.
Instead, Maj. Bitter was out-processed to the Individual Ready Reserve and placed in a no points, no pay status for two and a half years as punishment for refusing the COVID shot, which has since been declared unlawful as implemented. This administrative limbo effectively froze her career and blocked her from accruing the final points she needed to retire.
Because of the no points, no pay status that shes been put on, Younts said, shes been prohibited from reaching 20 years [to become eligible for retirement]. In other words, the system was used not merely to discipline her, but to ensure she never crossed the finish line to the benefits she had nearly earned.
Even when she was later allowed to return to drill, the pattern repeated itself. She was again placed in a no points, no pay status after she objected to receiving the flu and typhoid vaccines, a stance that ultimately led to her discharge from the Air Force Reserve.
This week, Maj. Bitter was hauled before a Board of Inquiry (BOI) on serious-sounding charges that, upon closer inspection, appear inflated and legally dubious. She faced accusations of dereliction of duty, unlawful drug use, and violating a lawful order to get the flu vaccine and typhoid vaccine, Younts reported.
What came out and was clear from the Board is no in command or in JAG channels realized that dereliction of duty is not a legally sufficient basis to discharge someone [emphasis mine], Younts said, raising the obvious question: how could a panel of senior officers and legal professionals not understand such a basic point of military law? The dereliction allegation itself stemmed from a power outage at Travis Air Force Base that prevented her from accessing the systems necessary to complete a task, hardly the stuff of willful misconduct.
The unlawful drug use charge was even more tenuous. Younts said, She was also accused of drug abuse for using a substance that was recommended to her by a physician, was not a controlled substance, and she voluntarily disclosed it in her medical records to a military provider. He further clarified, She took something for seven days that doesnt require a prescription and isnt a controlled substance.
Despite her transparency, a military medical provider allegedly disclosed this information to her chain of command without authorization. As a result, she was interrogated without being advised of her rights and painted as a drug abuser, according to Younts, a portrayal that appears wildly disproportionate to the facts.
The Board ultimately rejected two of the most inflammatory accusations. They found there was no dereliction of duty and there no evidence of drug abuse, Younts shared. She was cleared of these charges.
Yet the Board still found a way to end her career. It concluded that she had disobeyed an order to receive the flu and typhoid vaccines and recommended that she be separated from the Air Force with an Honorable Discharge. They found no other misconduct other than not getting the flu or the typhoid vaccine, Younts said, underscoring that her only offense was refusing additional injections after her exemption and accommodation efforts were stonewalled.
The central problem, Younts argued, is that Maj. Bitter did not simply refuse vaccines in defiance of orders; she attempted to follow the process. She sought both a medical exemption and a religious accommodation for the flu and typhoid shots, but these requests were not processed [emphasis mine] by her chain of command, leaving her in a bureaucratic dead zone where her rights existed only on paper.
With her exemption and accommodation requests effectively ignored, the stakes could not be higher. She stands just eight pointstwo drill periods or a single drill weekendshort of retirement, only to be forced out of the service to which she devoted her adult life, raising the question of whether this is the kind of military War Secretary Pete Hegseth wants Americans to join.
Despite the institutional hostility she has faced, Maj. Bitter has continued to encourage others to serve in uniform, a testament to the very character and integrity the Air Force claims to prize. That steadfast commitment to duty, even in the face of personal loss, stands in stark contrast to the Boards and bureaucrats who seem increasingly willing to shut the door on the nations finest over ideological mandates and procedural neglect.
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