Most of us probably knew this was coming after the Pentagon was forced to repeal the COVID vaccine mandate for the troops last month. The Marines had been hit particularly hard, with more than 3,700 troops being discharged after refusing to take the shots and nearly as many stuck in limbo with pending exemption requests. Very few exemptions were granted for either religious or medical reasons. But now that the mandate has been removed, some recruiters have been sending out text messages to the people who were discharged, inviting them to come back to the ranks. But as Alpha News reports, not everyone is ready to forgive and forget just yet.

Marine Corps recruiters are sending out texts to former members who left active or reserve duty over the COVID-19 vaccine mandate asking if they would like to rejoin now that the Secretary of Defense has overturned the mandate, screenshots of the texts obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation show.

Corps recruiters reached out to Individual Ready Reserve Marines — “men and women who had left the active or reserve forces” — alerting them that the COVID-19 vaccine mandate has officially been repealed, a Marine Corps Recruiting Command spokesperson confirmed. The recruiters then ask if the members would like to discuss options for returning to service if they were among the thousands discharged for refusing to take the required vaccine against COVID-19, multiple screenshots of the messages obtained by the DCNF show.

A spokesperson for the Marines was quick to point out that this was not some new, official policy that was handed down from the top ranks. These are individual recruiters who were taking the initiative to try to lure back some of the troops that were discharged.

They may manage to bring back some of the troops, but text messages obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation show that some of the discharged Marines are distrustful and in no mood to take the recruiters up on their offer. One of them responded by saying that he had been “belittled by command” for more than a year and had to fight to get an honorable discharge. And after all of that, he asked if they think that “the second they take that requirement away I’m running back?”

The same former Marine went on to state that they could bring the mandate back “tomorrow” and he would be stuck right where he was before. That may or may not be true, given the position that’s been taken by the courts, but it’s easy to understand how many of the dismissed troops would be suspicious.

There’s a limit to how much people will put up with and that includes many of our men and women in uniform. The Marines in particular are not a good group to push around. When diplomacy ends and the fighting begins, it’s almost always the Marines who are the first sent to the front lines. Some of these former members clearly feel like their own government has essentially spit on them, giving many of them less than honorable discharges over their refusal to participate in a medical procedure they opposed.

Sadly, this is something that we’ve been discussing here since the first mandates began to roll out. It seemed obvious that the mandates would have to end eventually, but it was never going to be as simple as flipping a switch. And now it’s going to take some time before we get our military back up to the required staffing levels, assuming we ever do.