(LifeSiteNews) — A Special Forces Green Beret who was forced out of the military for refusing to take the COVID shot is running in a special election to take the U.S. House seat vacated by Matt Gaetz.

John Frankman, a former seminarian who previously served as a captain in the U.S. Army’s 7th Special Forces Group (7SFG), announced Thursday that he is “running for Congress in Matt Gaetz’s seat to support President Trump and his agenda.”

I’m a Special Forces Green Beret who was forced out of the military for refusing to take COVID shot.

Now, I’m running for Congress in Matt Gaetz’s seat to support President Trump and his agenda.

I fought for our freedoms in the Army, and I’m ready to do it again.

Join me. pic.twitter.com/WzAJZvqYni

— John Frankman (@JohnFrankmanFL) November 15, 2024

The self-described “America First Conservative” is running for Gaetz’s Northwest Florida District 1 Congressional Seat now that Gaetz has been selected by Trump to be his U.S. Attorney General.

The Green Beret explained in an op-ed last year how he ultimately left his military career in order to not to violate his Catholic moral conscience as well as preserve his bodily autonomy in the face of repeated pressure to get an experimental COVID-19 jab. 

As Frankman noted to LifeSiteNews editor-in-chief John-Henry Westen last year, the COVID shots were developed using tissue from aborted unborn babies.

“It’s absolutely sickening that we would be complicit in something like that. But it’s not just the murder. It’s the continued theft of the body,” said Frankman, referring to an argument several priests have made about the COVID shots, including exorcist Father Chad Ripperger and Father Michael Copenhagen.

“We don’t have any rights to the bodies of these aborted babies … Just like we go to different countries to recover the bodies of service members to inter them, because there’s a sacredness, we need to do the same for the children,” Frankman said.

He was told by one priest that receiving the COVID shots not only constituted grave matter regarding abortion but also with regard to prudence. Frankman suggested that even apart from their connection to aborted babies, the shots were “an act against reason.” 

During his conversation with Westen, he told how he pointed out to his superiors that the shots had caused ample death and injury as shown by the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), had not undergone long-term human trials, and were disseminated under an emergency use authorization (EUA).

In his op-ed, Frankman criticized the military for failing to respect the conscience rights of its service members as it aggressively pressured them to take the experimental COVID shot and pointed out that the “highest levels of the Department of Defense obscured information about the legality of the mandate” and “the medical safety of the shot,” as well as its ethical implications. 

“Most leaders, even if concerned about the shot, were ignorant about its medical side effects and the legality of the order,” Frankman wrote.

“Military leaders, rather than taking responsibility for their service members’ well-being and critically asking about the potential negative effects of the shot and mandate, realized failing to conform would be detrimental to their careers. As a result, service members’ morale and trust in leadership is extremely low,” he added.

As a result of this campaign of coercion, those were not forced out of the military are “leaving because they are disillusioned with the military as the institution forced them to choose between their career or their conscience, health, and well-being.”

The military is also now “a less lethal force than it should be as it wasted immense time and energy focusing on forcing service members to conform, rather than to train,” according to Frankman.

The Green Beret quoted Edmund Burke’s words, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” 

“In order to avoid these evils in the future, each of us must inform and follow our consciences, especially those in authority such as military leaders,” Frankman wrote.

Under Florida law, there is an eight-week window in which to fill a vacant seat, according to U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. The process will involve both a primary and general election. Considering that the district’s region in the Florida panhandle and that Gaetz won his election year with 66% of the vote, a Republican is “all but guaranteed to hold the seat,” as Florida Politics noted.