UMVA has learned that a U.S. Space Force officer is battling a relentless cascade of retaliation after refusing the 2021 COVID‑19 vaccine on religious grounds.
Major Matt Murphy, stationed at the National Reconnaissance Office in Virginia, now faces an administrative maelstrom that threatens to end his career, despite the vaccine mandate being officially rescinded in January 2023 and declared unlawful in May 2025.
According to information obtained by UMVA, Murphy was accused on June 11, 2026, of skipping a physical‑training session—a charge backed by paperwork that proved he had no obligation to attend. The same chain of command that once pressured him during the pandemic is now wielding the accusation like a weapon.
His attorney, retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Davis Younts, describes the case as a textbook example of retaliation, noting that no officer would normally receive a career‑ending Letter of Reprimand for a missed PT session.
Murphy’s ordeal began long before the disciplinary notices. In 2020 he and his wife moved to New York for a doctoral program at Rochester Institute of Technology, only to be barred from campus when the university enforced the vaccine rule, forcing his disenrollment.
While his family welcomed a third child, the stress of the ban and a parallel fight with the Air Force compounded his anguish, leaving him yearning for simple moments of peace with his loved ones.
Without warning or explanation, the NRO command unleashed a rapid succession of punitive actions: a Letter of Reprimand, an Article 15, and a looming threat of a court‑martial, all while ignoring standard military education protocols.
Younts asserts that Murphy’s commanding officer weaponized a Command Directed Evaluation, a mental‑health assessment, as a covert tool to strip his security clearance and silence dissent.
Since 2024, Murphy has been passed over twice for promotion to lieutenant colonel, a setback he and his family attribute directly to the lingering shadow of the vaccine mandate.
Efforts to secure a tuition waiver from RIT, appeals to promotion boards, and petitions to the Board for Correction of Military Records have all hit dead ends, reinforcing a pattern of institutional indifference.
“It feels like an orchestrated effort to derail his career and force an administrative separation,” Younts warned, echoing the fears of countless service members who claim the Board’s review process is little more than a perfunctory gesture.
Amid mounting legal battles and personal hardship, Murphy draws strength from faith, family, and the conviction that his stand is righteous—a resolve echoed by his pastor’s reminder that true peace cannot be shattered by intimidation.
His wife urges others to rally behind military families facing similar persecution, emphasizing that evil seeks to erode peace, not the soul.
Murphy’s story is one of many emerging from the pandemic era, where service members were forced to choose between conscience and career under directives later deemed illegal.
UMVA can exclusively reveal that the fight for accountability is far from over, and that exposing these injustices remains essential to protecting the rights of those who serve.
