No Way Out
Welcome to the No Way Out podcast where we examine the variety of domains and disciplines behind John R. Boyd’s OODA sketch and why, today, more than ever, it is an imperative to understand Boyd’s axiomatic sketch of how organisms, individuals, teams, corporations, and governments comprehend, shape, and adapt in our VUCA world.
No Way Out
Lesson NOT Learned: Illegal Mandates with Col (Ret.) Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer
The conversation examines military anthrax vaccine mandates and draws parallels to COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
"No Way Out" welcomes special co-host Matthew "Whiz" Buckley, host of the "No Fallen Heroes Max Afterburner" podcast, along with Tom "Buzz" Rempfer, to dissect the contentious issues surrounding vaccine mandates. Utilizing their backgrounds in fighter aviation and operational risk management, these former TOPGUNs explain how concepts like John Boyd's OODA loop have shaped their views on decision-making processes. Buzz also shares insights from his book "Unyielding: Marathons Against Illegal Mandates," where he exposes the alarming quality control issues he uncovered during his investigation into the anthrax vaccine program.
The discussion spans the historical and legal ramifications of the anthrax vaccine program, revealing how the military continued to mandate a problematic vaccine despite numerous adverse reactions and legal setbacks. Drawing parallels to the COVID-19 vaccine mandates, they delve into the origins of the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) law and its implications for public health and individual rights. Personal anecdotes from military personnel highlight the coercive tactics used to enforce vaccination, underscoring the critical need for lawful orders and informed consent within the military hierarchy.
Thomas Rempfer on X
Hoping 4 Justice
Unyielding: Marathons Against Illegal Mandates
No Fallen Heroes Podcast
AGLX Confidence in Complexity short commercial
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Substack: The Whirl of ReOrientation
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Recent podcasts where you’ll also find Mark and Ponch:
Acta Non Verba – with Marcus Aurelius Anderson
Eddy Network Podcast Ep 56 – with Ed Brenegar
The School of War Ep 84 – with Aaron MacLean
Spatial Web AI Podcast – with Denise Holt
OODAcast...
So, hey, welcome to no Way Out. Today we have a special co-host. He is the podcast host of no Fallen Heroes, max Afterburner. He's also the founder of Top Gun Options and the founder of the no Fallen Heroes Foundation, and that's Wiz Buckley. Many of you should be familiar with him right now. Thanks for being here, wiz. Appreciate it, you bet.
Matthew "Whiz" Buckley:Ponch, thanks for having me, bro.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:All right, and then we have a retired Air Force colonel. We won't hold that against him right now, but that is a retired Colonel, tom Buzz Remfer. So it's actually this sounds like a toy story here, with Buzz Wiz and Ponch talking about vaccines and vaccine mandates. Anyway, buzz, welcome to the show. How are you doing today? Thank you very much. Ponch, appreciate it. Thanks for being here. I just want to share with everybody. I know they can't see this, but I'm going to hold it up anyway.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:If you're listening right now there's a book by Buzz. It's called Unyielding. It's Marathons Against Illegal Mandates. I picked this up in the last week. It is a must read if you want to understand a few things about the mandates that happened to us in the last three or four years, as well as our previous experience in the military with the anthrax vaccines. And, more importantly, it covers this through the lens of lessons from fighter aviation, talks about John Boyd's OODA loop, information, warfare, many, many connections that we talk about here on the show.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:So we're going to start with just a basic understanding, or common understanding of what we talk about on our show, and we talked about orientation and the OODA loop. Orientation determines how we perceive the reality on the outside world. It determines how we sense the outside world. It determines how we plan, we act, we learn and adapt. And I would have to say that some of the best lessons in improving that type of OODA loop come from fighter aviation in the form of things like operational risk management, aviation crew resource management, red teaming, our weapons school approaches to planning and debriefing. I think you're both familiar with that. We also had access to things like wicked problems when you went to NPS and I went to ACSC, things like that.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:We looked at John Boyd's OODA loop, total quality management. We've been exposed to many, many things. And why does this matter? Well, within orientation of John Boyd's OODA loop there are genetics, culture and previous experience. They mix to determine how you sense the outside world. Genetically, we are pattern matching beings, that is, we find patterns in the environment and we see them, and it reduces the energy span required to actually survive and thrive. So patterns are a good thing. And then our previous experiences are those things I just listed there. So I want to start there and kind of ask the both of you what are the previous experiences that you've had in fighter aviation that either helped you in business or helped you navigate this investigation into these unjust vaccines. I'll start with Buzz.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Yeah, I appreciate it, punch, that is the lens that I use. It's my military experience and so when my colleague, the late Lieutenant Colonel Russ Dingell, and I were asked by our chain of command to analyze the anthrax vaccine program and bring to the attention of the chain of command any potential systemic problems, we used our skills as pilots. Our philosophy was you don't take broken airplanes airborne. So we approached the anthrax vaccine program in the same way and very quickly we discovered that the anthrax vaccine manufacturer had suffered significant quality control deviations. The FDA inspection reforms said top line said the anthrax vaccine manufacturing process is not validated. So you basically have a military operation with an anthrax vaccine mandate and it's a vehicle, the vaccine itself coming from a manufacturer that's not validated. You and I would not fly an airplane that came from an invalidated manufacturer, so that was no-go number one. In addition, the manufacturer had received a notice of intent to revoke their license.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:You dig a little deeper and you discover that the military, as early as 1985, so 15 years prior to the anthrax vaccine mandate they'd actually put out a request for proposal to get a new vaccine that worked, that didn't cause as high of adverse reaction rates. So they knew they had something they needed to be replaced and they didn't do it. They were using the same vaccine that they knew they needed to replace in 1985, and that they'd used in the first Gulf War and had significant medical safety problems with it. And then, beyond that, if you dig a little deeper, we had discovered that they actually had not licensed the vaccine. So they had all of the rhetoric of safe, effective, fda approved. And we discovered and presented not only to the chain of command but also to the Food and Drug Administration and ultimately the federal courts, who did stop the program because it was patently illegal. We presented to them the reality that the government also in 1985, had published in the Federal Register a proposed rule to license the vaccine but they'd never finalized it, so it was an unlicensed drug product. And that that creates a fascinating historical picture as far as the intersection with COVID vaccines.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Because once the federal court shut the anthrax vaccine program down because it was not licensed, because the government and the military were not quote unquote substantially justified in what they did, they declared that the vaccine program was illegal, said you can't treat our troops as guinea pigs. Well, once they were caught in that fundamental lie, they ended up creating the Emergency Use Authorization, the EUA law, because the anthrax vaccine was an unlicensed medical product. It was an unapproved medical product. They needed a mechanism to still offer voluntarily the vaccine to the troops and they even posted in the Federal Register that using the anthrax vaccine under emergency use authorization would be strictly voluntary, no penalty, no loss of benefits. That was the precedent and it was also the law Title 10, section 1107 of the US law. And it was also the law Title 10, section 1107 of the US law. And it was that same emergency use authorization that was implemented for the COVID vaccine mandates and therefore they should have been absolutely voluntary, no penalty.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:So I want to take a step back to that context where and I'm holding up my medical records and some NATOPS manuals you can see how thick that is from our NATOPS from my time in the cockpit. In there it shows that I took, I think, three rounds of the anthrax vaccine. So I was Lieutenant JG at the time, young dumb you know, and trying to do the God's work out there. Wiz, I can't remember. Did you take the? Were you in LARP for that?
Matthew "Whiz" Buckley:You ready for this man? You guys are both going to love this. When was it 99-2000? Yeah, I dropped my letter. Man, I have a FedEx class date. I'm an instructor pilot in a marine training squadron in Miramar. Right, ain't deploying, I'm getting out in a couple months. I got fedex class date and this anthrax order came down and, of course, marine colonel in charge of the squadron. Uh, everybody has to take this. You know, blah, blah. I'm like. I ain't taking this, I'm going to fedex in a couple months. You can kiss my ass. You don't take this. You will be court-martialed. We will extend you on active duty for a year to court-martial. You, you'll be dishonorably discharged. It was absolute insanity. So I ended up taking three of these things against my will before I got out. It was an absolute nightmare. I was not in a forward deployed squadron. I'm an instructor pilot, I'm separating active duty, going to the airlines and they said we will throw you in jail if you do not do this. It was a nightmare.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:It was very clear you had to do it. It was like wearing a helmet, and I think you write about that buzz in your book. So, buzz, you didn't have to take any of the vaccines. Is that correct, that's?
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:correct. When we discovered that the vaccine program was patently illegal, we refused. I mean, our attitude was this is a matter of good order and discipline. You don't follow patently illegal orders. That's supported by the Manual for Court Martial and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. You know, unfortunately, most troops did not have the information that we did and so they went along with it, and you know, rightly so. You know you do have to follow orders. It's the job of the military leadership to make sure that they don't let patently illegal orders trickle down to the line troops.
Matthew "Whiz" Buckley:I wish I had, you know, everything you just said I wish I had at the time because they just, you know, they promised the full weight and force of the Marine Corps and then the Navy. And I'm like, I got to leave. I'm leaving in two months to go to Memphis and you know flight training. So I just I succumbed and I regret it to this day. I mean, clearly I have some medical issues related to it because I'm insane. But man, if I had been armed, because I felt that to my core, right Buzz, we're taught on day one of officer training like, hey, man, anything illegal it's the Nuremberg defense dude. It didn't work for them, it ain't going to work for you. So if you think something is just so outrageous, don't do it. I think I probably threw that up a little bit.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:And, of course, the Marine colonels and all that stuff just pummeled us into the ground with threats and I regret it to this day. Yeah, so how many troops received the vaccine, the anthrax vaccine? Do you have a rough estimate?
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:So ultimately they ran out of vaccine because the plant was closed and prior to that time there were over half a million soldiers that were given anthrax vaccines. So the numbers are sketchy Department of Defense really doesn't publish the numbers but they ran out of it. So they never actually inoculated all 2.4 million soldiers with the anthrax vaccine Once they were. Many years later, almost a decade later, once they were able to get it properly FDA approved and licensed, they started up the program on a very limited basis, for forward deploying troops only, and so for the troops that actually went into theater, it was only a small fraction of the force that ultimately had to be inoculated.
Matthew "Whiz" Buckley:Now, I'm not a virologist, clearly, but, buzz, didn't the enemy have to change like one molecule, and then the stuff they gave us was what has been ineffective anyway. What was the background on that?
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Yeah, so they didn't even have to change anything. There were questions about the efficacy of the vaccine to begin with. There were also admissions by the military, by the National Institute of Health, by Dr Fauci literally during the timeframe of the controversy, admitting that simple antibiotics penicillin, doxycycline, cipro were fully effective in combating the most lethal form of the disease inhalation anthrax and therefore this early treatment with antibiotics made it so. The vaccine was not even necessary, because the vaccine was not even known to be fully effective, and that's why they were requesting a new vaccine, which to this day they have never procured.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:Unbelievable. So we talk about how control of a system is from the outside in, and we use that in the context of John Boyd's. So systems drive behaviors, and I think we saw this during the COVID crisis as well, going back to the anthrax period. What was driving the military to vaccinate its force against this low threat? If you will?
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Yeah, great question, especially considering the threat had always been there Since the Cold War and prior there was always the threat of anthrax. So suddenly you have the embellishment of the threat. And I think that people on both sides of the issue acknowledge that the embellishment of the threat, the doctrinal departure to start inoculating against biological weapons, was of a concern. It was the nature of our first congressional testimony. We said why are we doing this? And there actually was a single congressional report that came out that verified, affirmed, validated our concerns about the illegality of the mandate, that it was in direct violation of US law. That report was titled violation of US law. That report was titled Unproven Force Protection House Report 106-556. And so they acknowledged and concurred with the doctrinal departure.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:But why did the doctrinal departure happen? In the absence of the Cold War threat, the United States military was looking for sources of new appropriations, new threats, and so they decided that they were going to start embellishing the biological warfare threat related to toxins, bacteria, viruses that had always existed. And so we were starting to go down that road of thinking that we could somehow defend against this very dynamic threat. We believed that that kind of proliferation was dangerous, that kind of signal to the enemy that hey, we're going to defend against this, we dare you to create something more virulent. We thought that was very dangerous. We had never done it in the past, and so that doctrinal departure was something that we tried to highlight as being highly problematic.
Matthew "Whiz" Buckley:It's interesting because obviously Eisenhower warned us against the military industrial complex. What about the big pharma industrial complex? We always have to create these boogeymen and then follow the money. Who was the pharma behind the anthrax and what was the money chain? I mean it's sad. In this country there is a sentence that simply says follow the money. What was the money behind it?
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Yeah, and there have been some great articles Los Angeles Times, other media outlets did great articles analyzing the very disturbing money trails and the influence peddling that led to these contracts for anthrax vaccine. It's actually very important to understand from the very beginning the anthrax vaccine was patented by the Department of the Army, so it was a. It was a Department of Defense vaccine. They had a little vaccine manufacturer in the state of Michigan under the Michigan Department of Public Health, which later became the Michigan Biologic Products Institute and then later became BioPort Corporation and today is called Emergent BioSolutions. But it all began with a backwater state-funded not really state-funded, it was Department of Defense-funded. It was basically an Army lab in the state of Michigan making vaccines without proper FDA oversight, patented by the Department of the Army. So it was totally an inside operation and there were military people during that timeframe and, to this day, ex-military and government officials that are on the board of directors. So if you look at the timeline and realize that we were testifying in Congress against the program and the people on the other side of the table testifying for the program ended up working for the manufacturer, but I think it's actually very important that that was never our argument the smelly nature of the contracts. That wasn't our argument.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Our argument was that this is patently illegal. It's in violation of US law, it's an unapproved drug product that you know perfectly well has safety and efficacy limitations, and you're implying to the American people and to our troops and to their commanders that they are fully protected if they take this vaccine. And you're using all of this stale rhetoric about this is a good order and discipline issue. Soldiers have to wear their helmets in order to intimidate everybody into taking the vaccine, and when that doesn't work, you threaten them with judicial action, non-judicial action, court-martials ruin their careers, take away their retirements, and this is a mistake that they made with the anthrax vaccine, and so they actually modified their bad behavior.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:And with COVID vaccines, they literally didn't punish anybody. They court-martialed one soldier and they made sure it wasn't about the vaccine. They made sure it was about other mandates and they basically coerced people out instead and got people to accept general discharges under honorable conditions, which stripped away their earned educational benefits. And so one of my main missions is based on all these bad behaviors, based on this patently illegal behavior by the Department of Defense. They need to correct the records for these troops, not only the thousand or so soldiers that they punished during the anthrax vaccine era with judicial action, court marshals, punishments, dishonorable discharges, jail time. They incarcerated some of these kids. They need to correct all of that, give everybody fully honorable discharges from anthrax vaccine and also with respect to the COVID vaccine mandates. They need to fully upgrade everybody's discharges to fully honorable, versus this ludicrous general discharges which takes away their earned educational benefits.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:So I want to talk about some lessons learned from the anthrax vaccination approach in the early 2000s and before that and how people picked up on that and applied it to COVID. We'll come to that here in a second, and before we do that, I want to ask you some questions about what damage has the anthrax vaccine done to population of the military that took it? Is there any evidence that there is an illness connected to it?
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Yeah, there are actually presumptive disability determinations. If you search the VA website there are past determinations where they give presumptive disability for anthrax vaccine. It has become so politicized. That's obviously a problem is anytime medicine becomes politicized. You know, if a soldier puts on their claim for disability that they think it might have been anthrax vaccine, a good chance probably very close to 100% chance that disability claim is going to be denied and they're going to have to go through the lengthy process of asking for reconsideration.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Ultimately there were definitely medical damages, long-term medical issues. I do document those in the book. People that actually died, a couple of young service women that actually passed away shortly after their vaccinations. Their families, even medical officials, have attributed their deaths to the vaccine. So you know everything from long-term autoimmune illnesses to death. So the anthrax vaccine caused significant problems and of course you know patterns. Significant problems and of course you know patterns. We see the same problems with COVID vaccines, a wide variety of. In anthrax vaccine they talked about hypersensitivity, pneumonia. With the COVID vaccines there's a wide variety of respiratory problems, neurological problems, immune system problems, blood clotting problems and it's all very well documented. So one of the significant patterns between the two programs is the significant medical problems, but the reality that the Department of Veterans Affairs, department of Defense, the government, is not acknowledging these illnesses and, unfortunately, it takes decades and decades for the government to honestly assess these illnesses and, unfortunately, it takes decades and decades for the government to honestly assess these things.
Matthew "Whiz" Buckley:Well, I think, ponch, you brought up the lessons learned. Clearly we didn't learn any lessons learned from we didn't debrief the anthrax disaster. Guys like Buzz actually went out of their way to try and attempt to get some lessons learned, but we didn't listen to them. I mean, forcing that COVID vax on like Navy SEALs the healthiest dudes on the face of the planet, young in shape tip of the spear and then to see what happened to those guys with heart issues and all sorts of stuff is just an absolute disgrace. I mean, if you wanted to reduce readiness and harm the military, these are great lessons learned. It's insane.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:I want to throw something at both of you. So I was vaccinated for both the anthrax and then, or you know, I got three series of it and then I ended up going to get the J&J COVID vaccine. I had to because there was a military at the time, a reservist. So here we are in the Pentagon wearing masks six feet apart, and then going across the street to some Irish pub afterwards and taking a mask off and sitting down and having dinner. Right, we could see the theater that was happening throughout all of this.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:But I want to point out something again and, buzz, you put this in your book as well, and it's really about to be or to do right, you can be somebody or you can do something. Wiz and Buzz are doing things. Ponch is being something. I'm trying to become a retired Navy captain and that's really why I didn't push back on it. And I think everybody around me was like all I have to do is get through six more months or three more months and I'm out of here. I'm just going to do what I'm told. Nobody's rocking the boat right. So again, the system is driving behaviors.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:I'm not saying I did the right thing or the wrong thing. I did what was right for me in the context and then, reflecting back on it, it was a bad decision. But I also prevented my children from getting I didn't let them get the COVID vaccine after some research. But that previous experience with the anthrax vaccines we all had it, but not everybody went through that like we did right. We didn't get that previous experience that normally comes with having that access to a vaccine or something that's I'll just call it illegal. So my question to you guys is how did you react to the COVID vaccine when they came out Buzz? What was your reaction right away?
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Yeah, great question and very significant because I didn't want to spend just like I'd spent the previous 20 years tilting windmills over anthrax vaccine. I did not want to get into another one of these whifferdales. So my initial approach was, you know, I tried to try to trust in the system that they were going to put out a vaccine for a legitimate public health threat, that they were going to do it right this time and they were going to follow the law. And I was actually very impressed initially that the military, when it was fully acknowledged that the vaccines were emergency use, authorized that they were actually having a voluntary program. So I was, you know, I was applauding the military.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Early on, I did some research for Children's Health Defense, assisted Robert F Kennedy Jr and Dr Merrill Nass, who was one of the doctors that actually helped us during the anthrax vaccine era, and they did a citizen petition in order to try to halt any kind of mandates. We were working on this in the spring of 2021, before there were mandates, and I was very naive, very idealistic. When you read my book, I mean, I think that's basically the picture in the memoir that is painted for you that, you know, the only reason I fought this stuff is because I'm idealistic, and so going into the COVID era, the pandemic, and prior to the mandates, I was very idealistic. I was thinking there's no way they're going to mandate this stuff. This is not FDA approved, so, sure enough. The Department of Defense immensely disappointed me because they ended up doing mandates when only emergency use authorized product was available and that's why it was a patently illegal order.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:And the government did the same thing for civilians with mandates, even though the law specifically says that they're supposed to have the option to accept or refuse and that any consequences are strictly medical. If you look at the context of consequences in the law, they're strictly medical. You can't be taking away people's jobs, keeping people from going to school. That is the law. The military law was a subset of the earlier law I cited. The military law is 10 USC 1107A for emergency use authorized products. Soldiers have to have their prior consent right. You cannot punish them and the precedent I mentioned in the Federal Register, which is on my website, unyieldingorg, says the same thing. You cannot penalize the troops for exercising their prior consent rights. So when COVID came around initially I was idealistically trusting, but ultimately the government fundamentally violated the same laws disappointed me and that's why I finally put the book together. I said, hey, people need to understand the patterns of the bad behavior that have reemerged.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:Hey Wiz, I want to hear what happened to you. I know you were not in the military at the time, during COVID, but just tell us what happened.
Matthew "Whiz" Buckley:Well, I mean mentally, I was back in the anthrax days of okay, here we go. The government can create emergencies, so they also can create solutions too. I was vehemently against it on day one. Anything where the government says we're going to rush something through and, by the way, the people that are making it are absolutely held harmless I mean that's when you just got to stop and go. Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a second here, so anything. Whenever the government does something like that, it should be a full stop moment, but it wasn't.
Matthew "Whiz" Buckley:So I was frothing at the mouth, not being in the military anymore, against, uh, all of this stuff. And just to see the narrative, uh, you know the settled science and the it, just it, I, I, I was living in an alternate reality. Just, I clearly didn't take it. Nobody I knew took it. I actually got it in like December of whatever I was I've never had the flu in my life and whatever this was. I thought I was dead and I lived. I mean I was fine, I zank and shit, whatever I did. But, man, seeing the government out of control once again and just, and now you, you know, you see the people backpedaling, right, I think it was a year ago the Atlantic or whatever the New York Times did a. Hey, can we just move on from that. There was no apology. It was kind of an acknowledgement that the quote other side was wrong and they wanted to just kind of put it behind us. So, man, day one, I was against all of it. It was just absolute insanity. You cannot allow drug makers to be quote. I was day one, I was against all of it. It was just absolute insanity. You cannot allow drug makers to be quote held harmless, the government to be able to Nobody's. Both. You guys know this.
Matthew "Whiz" Buckley:In the military we have a term called a spa right, a single point of accountability. Commanding officer of a ship runs the ground. It doesn't matter if she or he is sleeping on the treadmill or eating chow, they're fired. He is sleeping on the treadmill or eating chow, they're fired. So whenever you have something of this massive scale where there is zero accountability, I am absolutely against it. Somebody. This is why the military, the last institution in this country that kind of can execute on a whatever basis, has accountability. Somebody's got 51% of the vote, somebody's going to get a medal or court-martialed. But when the COVID thing started going on, when everybody was just kind of like well, nobody's going to be held accountable for anything. I'm like done, I'm out, I'm not doing any of it.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:So during the COVID crisis, we had more social media access to that. And then during the you know, when we were going through the anthrax vaccines, we didn't. We had information warfare. We were familiar with that. But, wiz, I'm curious what happened to you professionally in your businesses as you started to speak up.
Matthew "Whiz" Buckley:Dude, I lost social media accounts. I got put in you know Facebook jail. I lost a Facebook account. I lost a very big YouTube channel. I mean, the bots would you know? You know, punch would be in a Top Gun options brief. I'm talking about this, and of course, we printed money because the market was crashing and stuff like that. But whenever I mentioned anything like that in a brief, the YouTube bots would automatically that video is this and you got a strike. So it was insane. There was no freedom of speech. If you went against a narrative, you were put in information warfare jail.
Matthew "Whiz" Buckley:Personally, it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. As you know, ponch, we destroyed the market in a couple weeks as the smart money was crying on CNBC we need to close the markets and everything like that. We did the exact opposite and so personally, it was great, but professionally, I took a big hit to my way to advertise. I couldn't advertise anything because, hey, join me as we destroy the market. Because they're lying to you about COVID, got my account suspended and they're still shadow banned to the day on YouTube. I haven't recovered some of this stuff.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:So, buzz, you experienced some information warfare too, or IO, during your investigation. Can you talk a little bit about that, what it was like, what was happening? How did they attack you?
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Yeah, absolutely. And I also just want to pile on to Wiz's comment there about liability protections, liability shields, indemnification. In the appendix of the book I actually show the indemnification document for the anthrax vaccine. So they did the same thing. You know, contrary to our collective experience, where there should be accountability, where there should be accountability, there should be some kind of liability threat. If you're putting out a marginal product that potentially doesn't work or isn't properly licensed, there should be some kind of liability for that. But they did the same thing during the anthrax era. And then, of course, with the EUA products, emergency use, authorized products, the covered entities that includes everybody from the manufacturer to the government officials that are pushing the mandates they're all 100% indemnified, there is no liability, and so that should be a warning flag to the American people that anytime they're putting out products where there's no liability, that are rushed, putting out products where there's no liability that are rushed, and particularly when they're mandating them, that should be of great concern to the American people.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:But directly to your question about information operations, so here we are we're a couple knucklehead fighter pilots and we're highlighting to the chain of command, based on an official tasking by the chain of command that the anthrax vaccine program has basically met abort criteria, right. And so when they say, sorry guys, we're moving forward with the program, we end up refusing. They end up grounding us from our jobs, which basically makes it so that we lose our mobilization status, up grounding us from our jobs, which basically makes it so that we lose our mobilization status. So we stayed ahead of them and we ended up jinking to other military positions that didn't require the vaccine at that time. And so the information operations piece of it comes in because it became public. Our elected representatives Senator Dodd, representative Chase from Connecticut, ultimately now Senator Blumenthal, but then Attorney General Blumenthal supported us.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:There were a lot of articles, and the way the Department of Defense responded to our transfers and our refusing the vaccine was, they implied they stated that we didn't want to deploy anymore. We wanted to spend more time with our families, we wanted to focus on our civilian jobs. They lied. It was just an absolute, blatant misrepresentation of a principled decision to refuse an illegal order. But it gets worse than that the information operations. It's not just about Department of Defense officials disingenuously, dishonestly testifying or reporting to the American people untruths. They actually hired former Wall Street Journal reporters to be the head of public relations for the Department of Defense, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. He was a newspaper guy, so when he was met with these questions about the anthrax vaccine he made everybody laugh. He spewed these falsities. The people on the opposite side of the microphone didn't know how to respond. This was one of their reporter buddies. So that's what the Department of Defense does.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:And this gets to our discussion about the OODA loop. You know, observe, orient, decide and act. The military is basically not only inserting themselves into other entities' decision-making cycles, they're actually taking entities that normally provide oversight and they are putting those people into the Department of Defense decision-making cycle in order to lead, turn or cut off responsible questioning, thorough analysis by the media by embedding media people into the decision-making cycle. And it gets worse than that. The place that I found to be the most deceptive disinformation operations was the Department of Defense activities on Capitol Hill, where they have a congressional liaison office. They have a multitude of active duty military personnel wearing civilian clothes working in elected representatives both representatives and senators offices, and when veterans or any citizen comes in to ask questions, to make complaints, more often than not you are sitting across the table from an active duty military person who is a defense liaison officer and and so sometimes I would question these folks.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Because we did a lot of lobbying on Capitol Hill. We we went in, sometimes in uniform, sometimes in civilian clothes. It was definitely our civilian duty, but also our military duty, to highlight illegal policy by the Department of Defense and more likely than not, we were sitting across the table from a military active duty person and sometimes they would identify themselves as military. Sometimes we'd have to dig it out of them. Sometimes they were helpful, but more often than not they were not helpful and they were essentially touting the military soundbites on Capitol Hill, deceiving not only our elected representatives as to the veracity of the threat and the safety and legality of the vaccine program.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:And again, you know, ultimately the federal courts concurred with us. The anthrax vaccine program was patently illegal. It was shut down because the vaccine was not licensed. Yet that entire time frame the military is saying, oh, this is FDA approved, it's been FDA approved for years. That just wasn't the case. There was an approval by a previous government agency that had never been upheld and was required to be upheld by the Food and Drug Administration as early as the 1970s and they never did it until we forced them to through court action. So the Congressional Liaison Office activities by the Department of Defense from this OODA loop perspective are highly problematic.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:You have the Department of Defense in the decision-making cycles of our elected representatives on Capitol Hill, steering them towards supporting DOD policy and making sure that citizens that are in the offices on Capitol Hill complaining about DOD policy are being met by Department of Defense officials in civilian clothes. To me it is disturbing and and it is the classic example of the OODA loop in action.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:I've never heard this story. You know, like you said when, after my time in active duty, I just didn't think much about it and I remember the anthrax scare. I think there's a letter that went to was it Daschle, senator Daschle? Yes, yeah, and I remember that. And a couple of years later we heard from the FBI that somebody involved with the anthrax program was behind that. Is that true?
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Yeah. So it's a really important story, something the Department of Defense does not want people to be thinking about and the government in general I mean the Congress. After all of this happened the anthrax letter scares, which basically resuscitated the failing anthrax vaccine program Really nobody wants to talk about it because it's a gargantuan failure of oversight. But where it all began was H Ross Perot, in the 2000 and 2001 time frame was calling me and my buddy, russ, and was getting information book and promised that they were going to get the program reviewed. They did. Karl Rove responded to H Ross Perot and had Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, review the program. His undersecretaries, dr David Chu and Secretary Pete Aldridge reviewed the program and recommended to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to basically cancel the anthrax vaccine program. And this all was prior to the anthrax letter attacks. They were recommending that the program be minimized, halted, develop a new vaccine Exactly what we were saying in our congressional testimonies. H Ross Perot was agreeing with us, karl Rove was agreeing with us. Ultimately, wolfowitz, chu, aldridge and even Rumsfeld were effectively agreeing with us, and that's why I put all of the quotes in the historical documentation in the book to show that there was an honest review process. After all of the deceptions, there was an honest review process that came to the same conclusion that we came to we need to halt this program. This is a broken airplane and it needs to be grounded.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:But what happened later? A couple of weeks later, 9-11. Everybody's scared and a week after 9-11, anthrax letters start showing up in the mail and the initial insinuation is this is coming from some kind of an adversary threat. It took 10 years, but ultimately the FBI ended up concurring with our original assumptions and our original tips. We were telling the FBI within literally within days of the anthrax letter attacks that we suspected it was probably emanating from Fort Detrick because their program was about to be canceled by the Department of Defense. We were ignored. We were ignored wholesale, but ultimately the FBI came out in their 2009, 2010 reports same timeframe that essentially suspected that some entities within the United States Army were probably responsible for the anthrax letter attacks.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:And after my thesis came out, the FBI report called the Amerithrax report. It came out and it concurred that the motive for the anthrax letter attacks was to save the failing anthrax vaccine program, to rejuvenate it, and so, but at that point it was 10 years later. Nobody went back and and fixed the punishments. Nobody went back and said hey, you know, we were about to cancel this program and it got resuscitated, revived, rejuvenated by the anthrax litter attacks. Very embarrassing. And because of that embarrassment nobody ever went back. Guess who this? The United States senator who was attacked, senator Tom Daschle. Four months prior to the anthrax letter attacks he had written ever connected those dots. Even the FBI didn't connect those dots because that was really embarrassing that they basically implied in the FBI report that they had no idea why Tom Basher was attacked, which is ludicrous, considering they affirmed that the motive was to save the failing anthrax vaccine program, a program that he was questioning.
Matthew "Whiz" Buckley:Or the FBI did know and they're lying about it.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:I think that's probably the more likely.
Matthew "Whiz" Buckley:That's more plausible. Talk about a I mean a false flag attack man Absolute insanity, yeah.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:All right, all right Thanks.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Take care man.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:All right, Appreciate that. Hey, Buzz, there's so much more in here we could dive into with the understanding that humans, the way we reconstruct the past is, is. It's not like a videotape. We don't go back and play the same thing over and over, so our memories are always being modified, if you will, and I think the people that really understand how to get inside the OODA loop know that. They know that they can inject new information and help you misremember the past, and I think this is why effective debriefing is important and you brought that up in your book, as from the weapons school, you learned effective debriefing to look back at what happened.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:When I look back at your book, it gives me an accounting of what happened, right, and it's not to me, it's not a. It's very factual. It's like this happened, this happened, this happened. This is very, very important. So emotions are taken out of it and I just wanted to thank you for that, writing the book in that way where it is, in my view, very factual. Hey, this happened, this happened. When we look back at the COVID vaccines and what happened in the last four or five years, many folks don't realize that the definition of a vaccine was actually changed. Right from the CDC. These things happen and we get to rewrite the history of what happened via what's available to us on Google or the internet. So questions to you. Here we are on the eve of a next potential threat, monkeypox. I don't know if we could say that, but what should we be on the lookout for here going forward?
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Yeah. So when it comes to medical countermeasures, you're absolutely correct that they literally changed the definition of a vaccine being from something that is immunizing providing immunizing type protection actually protect you from the disease, keep you from being infected and or from transmitting it to instead something that is more like a medical treatment, just merely provides a level of protection, which bottom line is they've changed the definitions based on the fact that their narrative about both safety and efficacy has essentially unraveled on them. So that should be of concern, and it should be of concern as we move into any future type threats or pandemic or endemic type situations. I also wanted to just reflect back on something that Wiz mentioned about the idea that they want you to forget what happened. They actually titled the executive order I believe it was 14099. That executive order is literally titled moving beyond the federal mandates. They want you to forget what they did With the federal mandates.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:They violated US law for a variety of reasons. The Supreme Court said that they violated concepts in the Procurement Act and related to the Tenth Amendment with respect to the large employer mandate. A variety of appellate level courts struck down a variety of the mandates for American citizens and our troops from being subjected to mandates for experimental or investigational or, most aptly termed, unapproved medical products, and the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, niaid, which Fauci was in charge of. They cannot put forth vaccines as fully approved unless they're able to actually prove that they work, which we all know today, that the COVID vaccines fundamentally did not work as originally advertised, and not only did they change the definition of vaccines, but this emergency use authorized standard for drug approval is, instead of being based on proof of safety and efficacy, it's based on a reasonable assumption, so there's a lower standard, and so this is also to me very concerning that we are going in reverse.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:I've studied, I've done previous podcasts, I mentioned it in the book the concept of drug law history. A hundred years ago we started to try to make sure that our drugs were safe, and later they tried to make sure that they were effective, and they put in strict controls and laws to ensure safety and efficacy. But with the advent of the emergency use authorization, we literally have unwound reversed 100 years of drug law history in order to make things less assuredly safe and effective. That's a problem, and so it's from that lens that I think the American people should be saying hey, not only are you embellishing these threats and not only are you putting out products that we end up finding out are not nearly as safe as you said and certainly are not effective they're not stopping transmission or infection but you actually unwound, you actually reversed, you changed the drug law requirements in order to allow these lesser safe and effective vaccines or medical countermeasures to be used, and you gave the manufacturers 100 percent liability protection in the process, so that the American people essentially have no recourse. They do have recourse.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:There's a program called the CICP, the countermeasure injury compensation program, that people can apply to if they feel like they've been injured by the COVID vaccines, a countermeasure used under emergency use authorization but it's very hard to get compensated. Even if they do get compensated, it's paltry. And so there's all of this liability protection for the manufacturers and the government officials that are pushing this stuff, but there's very little protection for the people that are actually being imposed these mandates illegally. So that's a problem too. There's this incredible manipulation of the laws, and the American people are basically being left hung out to dry, as are the troops.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:And when it comes to that CICP, I also want to mention, kind of a point of order, the CICP. This Countermeasures Injury Protection Program, is only for emergency use authorized products. Anybody who takes a COVID vaccine pre-September 2023, who has a medical problem, is required to apply under the CICP. The CICP is only for EUAs and EUAs cannot be mandated. So it's de facto proof that the mandates were illegal, in violation of not only 10 USC 1107A but also the civilian counterpart law 21 USC 360 BBB-3.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:Dang. I'm kind of curious here. I got a couple questions about one what kind of threats have arisen for you or emerged for you as a result of the book? Has anybody come after you? Are you feeling any pressure from anybody? And then, second part to that is how can you help? What are some key recommendations from some of the lessons we talked about and may have not talked about during this episode? What are the lessons you could bring over from the military aviation, the OODA loop, to help people inoculate or create some type of inoculum against this misinformation, another vaccine mandate. So trying to figure out what we can help our listeners take away from this conversation. So, going to that first part any threats to you?
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:So no, I've had no negative feedback with respect to the book. I think that's because the book is strictly a historical, factual analysis of of our journey where we challenged a mandate, we said it was illegal and then not only did the Congress put out a congressional report that said it was illegal, but the federal courts put out a ultimately prevailing ruling that said it was illegal. So when you document that, when you document all the government accountability office reports which also question the safety efficacy, the illegal, unapproved manufacturing changes to the anthrax vaccine product, our whole story is factual. So it essentially can't be disputed because we ended up being proven correct. And so one of my points I mentioned rules of engagement in the book at the beginning and also at the end One of my points is you got to stick to the facts.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:You've got to be very careful not to take the diversionary off ramps and start being concerned about other ancillary tangential issues. You have to just stick with the core law. And so that's what we did. And the book is a journey of not only applying the core law to the anthrax vaccine dilemma and proving that the anthrax vaccine program was patently illegal, but also then applying that same law to the COVID shot mandates and showing that they are also patently illegal when using emergency use authorized products. So I think that's the safety zone that I've remained in. I've been very careful not to get diverted by tangential issues. Stick to the core law and and hopefully you know, provide that template for the troops that if you're ever going to challenge one of these medical countermeasure mandates in the future, make sure you stick to the core law.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Protected us as far as the military not coming after us. We did get grounded but we were able to stay in the military and most everybody that challenged the vaccine based on these core legality issues. The military ended up managing their departures or their punishments or even letting them stay in because the military did not want to take on the core illegality arguments. There was actually a doctor that was court-martialed. I put the story in the book. The doctor was court-martialed down at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi. The doctor tried to raise the core illegality issues and the military court-martial would not allow the arguments.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:And so imagine that the Constitution gives us the right um uh, gives us the right of redress and gives us the right to a fair trial. But in the military, nothing was fair about it. They actually uh, prohibited the arguments about the illegality of the vaccine, which within a couple of years, were proven correct in the federal courts. Dang.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:Yeah, I did come across that story in the book. Any advice to people that are trying to take some key lessons about we talked about debriefing a couple of times in here, going back and understanding what happened from multiple perspectives and I think that's central to your book is you're staying to the facts and again, our perspectives may differ on a few things, but that's what we have to do in a debrief is reconstruct what happened, not worry about the attitudes and beliefs about something else and how we're being influenced by outside information. So that's one of the key takeaways I have from your book in relationship to John Boyd's OODA loop, as well as information warfare, fifth generation warfare and all that going on and all that going on. But any other lessons that you want to impart on our listeners from how to make them better thinkers and how to get them to think through challenging problems in the world?
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Yeah, so that's one of the rules of engagement that I try to put forth in the book. It's all about the debrief, it's all about the dialogue, the dialectic, and as long as you're asking the chain of command in a dispassionate and professional manner, or your government officials you know it's not just excluded exclusively within the military as long as you're keeping it professional, citing the law, I think that that's where the dialogue and the dialectic needs to go. That's the debrief right. And again, I think that's one of the ways to protect yourself is making sure that you're eminently professional.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:I use the term oftentimes. I used to use it with my kids all the time no ammo. You can't give them any ammo Too often. If you provide the military or the government any kind of alternative reason to come after you, they will take that ammo and they will prosecute you for that in order to diverge from the core issues that you're trying to be concerned about and trying to articulate in that dialectic or dialogue with the chain of command and your government officials. So no ammo and ask for that debrief. It is problematic whenever the chain of command or government officials are unwilling to have the dialogue. Once again alarm bells and once again pattern. These are patterns between the anthrax vaccine fiasco and the COVID shot dilemmas.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:A couple last things for you I want to turn it over to you here in a second. Howard, what are you doing now? Are you on a book tour? Are you doing a lot of podcasts? What is?
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:your day to day, like at the moment. Yeah, I don't turn down any podcasts. I do have a civilian job, and so you know, I take care of my family, I take care of my work. This is, in a sense, a hobby, but it's a hobby, it's a passion.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:It's a passion to get our soldiers records corrected, both for the illegalities from 25 years ago as well as for the COVID mandates. So that's my life, the book. It provides me an opportunity to compartmentalize these issues so I'm not banging my head against the wall eternally frustrated. Similarly, podcasts like this with you, ponch, help me to talk about these issues, work out my thoughts, make sure that my debrief is honest and true. I would love to be having a debrief with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CQ Brown, about this very issue and challenge him, help him correct the records for these troops based on the military blatantly violating their health rights, not only 25 years ago but also over the past few years.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Cq Brown, old dear friend of mine, I believe that if he actually understood what has happened or read the book on yielding that, he himself would probably say we have to correct these records for these troops. We have to demonstrate that um, uh, fundamental, uh, humility. He actually put out a memo about trust. We have to restore trust. Part of that restoring of trust is to show that the military leadership is willing to be humble on these issues and, uh, and unilaterally corrects the records for these troops I provide on the website unyieldingorg under the COVID tab, kind of the COVID history. The website is dedicated to anthrax vaccine. When you have issues like this that are so black and white, military, blatantly violated the law, the military leadership at some point needs to humble themselves, needs to restore trust. I'm hopeful that somebody like General Brown, who I believe is a very good man, I believe that if they actually have this debrief, if they actually have this dialogue and dialectic, that they will come to the same conclusions that I have come to.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:Now it's a powerful book and again, I appreciate you coming on the show to talk about it. So the website again is what is it?
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:So you can do it two ways. One would be hopingforjusticeorg, using the actual number four, hopingforjusticeorg or simpler, unyieldingorg also redirects to hopingforjusticeorg. Unyieldingorg also redirects to hopingforjusticeorg. Unyieldingorg goes straight to the tribute to my dear buddy, russ Dingle, who was my colleague on the Tiger team analyzing anthrax vaccine 25 years ago, for our commander Russ died in the interim. The book is a tribute to him.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:All profits from the book go to his widow. All profits from the book go to his widow, and so you can buy the book there. By clicking on the book image Takes you to the publisher's website, skyhorse Publishing. We're very grateful for publishing the book, and the book is sponsored by Children's Health Defense, which is Robert F Kennedy Jr's nonprofit, and the book walks you through this journey of trying to find ways to compartmentalize, facing these kinds of deceptions, deceits, illegalities, crimes by our government and by our military, and trying to emerge on the other side of the OODA loop in a healthy manner where you're able to continue to utilize the tools, the principles, the oaths, the values, the honor codes that the military gave you in order to surmount these kinds of challenges.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:You brought up RFK. I'm wondering when have you come across? Clearly you come across his work with the Real Anthony Fauci. I believe it is the name of the book, but has he contacted you? Was he familiar with the anthrax vaccination program? He was.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Yeah, we worked together years ago. I was supportive of his Mercury Project and he was aware that I was working on anthrax vaccine issues. In his next book, the Wuhan cover-up that came out about a year ago, he actually cites my work. On the cover of my book there is a quote by RFK Jr complimenting our work, which I was very grateful for. And I worked with RFK Jr and Dr Nass and members of his staff on the citizen petition that we put forth to try to stop mandates, basically to try to get the government to listen in advance, to try to get the government to not exhibit these same bad behaviors. We were unsuccessful. They ended up imposing illegal mandates, contrary to the citizen petition.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:Okay, and to be clear what I'm hearing from you, this is not about you're not anti-vaccine, you're just anti-illegal mandates. Is that correct?
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:That's correct and I say that over and over again in the book and I even include my shot record showing that I've got dozens and dozens of vaccines that I took in the military for legitimate public health threats. I never refused any other inoculations in the military. I am not anti-vaccine inoculations in the military. I am not anti-vaccine. I'm aware and I believe that we should have our government and military leaders actually be the ones that are the stewards for our health rights. Those health rights are articulated in the law and we need to have our leaders standing up for those rights rather than people having to stand up for their own rights and being labeled as anti-vax. It's wrong. It goes back to the core law. Just because people are wanting their rights to be respected and wanting their leaders to defend their medical rights does not mean they're anti-vax.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:Right, that's powerful, very powerful. Well, I think that's a good place to end it. Wrap it up right there. Hey, I want to thank you again for being on no Way Out. You know, wiz, I gave him a quick call the other day. I was like, hey, I think you might be interested in this. Please reach out to Wiz, see how you can work with him on what he's doing. We know we just went through an FDA disapproval of MDMA applied for PTSD for usage in the US. We're learning more about why they did that. Again, there's a process that needs to happen for approval to have a go no-go criteria right, and they decided it's a no-go. At the moment, nothing wrong about the FDA, but I believe there's a connection to what is happening or what you can talk about in your book and what we talked about on the show. So thank you again for being here. I'm going to keep you here for a few moments while we wrap this up.
Thomas "Buzz" Rempfer:Thank you so much. I always give the disclaimer that my views are my own. I don't reflect that of the Department of Defense or the US government or the Department of the Air Force, but I really do hope that they do someday, because in reality their original position about the problems with the anthrax vaccine are still my position. I'm the one who didn't forget what was in their documents.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera:Great, I appreciate that. Thank you, take care.
