President Trump is starting his second week in office Monday with a dramatic overhaul of the U.S. military with three sweeping executive orders.

Mr. Trump will sign an order reinstating service members who were thrown out of the military for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine. The move will return roughly 8,000 service members to their original rank with back pay and any benefits they lost when they were booted out of the military under President Biden.

Separately, Mr. Trump will also sign executive orders banning transgender service members and eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs from the military.

Reinstating the service members who got kicked out for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine fulfills a promise Mr. Trump made during the campaign and in his inauguration speech last week.

A White House fact sheet says the executive order will direct Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to reinstate “all members of the military (active and reserve) who were discharged for refusing the COVID vaccine and who request to be reinstated.”

After the vaccine mandate was repealed in 2023, only 43 of the more than 8,000 troops dismissed elected to return to the military under Mr. Biden, according to the White House fact sheet.

Service members who refused to comply with Mr. Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate lost their jobs and many were given either general or other-than-honorable discharges, which impacts their ability to access veterans benefits.

During his confirmation hearing, Mr. Hegseth, who was confirmed on Friday night, vowed to reinstate service members who were booted for refusing the vaccine.

The order is a directive to the Defense Department, meaning the reinstatements will not happen right away, but rather require action and direction from the Pentagon before the service members can be welcomed back.

Mr. Trump will also sign an order revoking Mr. Biden’s 2021 directive allowing transgender people to serve openly in the military. The Trump order will cite mental health and physical readiness as the reason for banning transgender service members from the military.

It will also lay out military standards on pronouns and gender identity.

The order states that “unit cohesion requires high levels of integrity and stability among service members,” according to The New York Post, which first reported the order.

The order says that it takes a minimum of 12 months for an individual to complete treatments after transition surgery, which often includes the use of heavy narcotics. Therefore, according to the order, transgender people “are not physically capable of meeting military readiness and requirements and requiring ongoing medical care.

“This is not conducive for deployment or other readiness requirements,” the order says.

It is unknown how many transgender service members are on active or reserve duty. A 2014 report from the UCLA School of Law estimated there are as many as 15,500.

Mr. Trump’s order also bans the use of “invented and identification-based pronouns” and prohibits biological males and females from sleeping, changing and using bathing facilities intended for the opposite sex.

The final executive order bans DEI in the armed forces, directing that all instances of “discrimination” based on such practices will be subject to an internal review by Mr. Hegseth.

Mr. Trump last week issued a similar executive order for federal agencies ordering them to close their DEI offices.

• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.