In September 2021, an Air Force technical sergeant named Andrew Gamberzky requested a religious exemption, due to his Christian beliefs, from the military’s then-mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy.
In his written request to the Oregon Air Force National Guard, Gamberzky decried the lack of “long-term research on the impacts and effects to human health and behavior” of the COVID-19 vaccine. (Decades of vaccine history and data from more than 1 billion people who have received COVID-19 vaccines suggests limited danger from the vaccines themselves although new research on the impacts of those with Long COVID have shown its at-times devastating health impacts.) He objected to the use of any “fetal material” in its research, development and the vaccines themselves. (While historic fetal cells from the 1970s and 80s were used in the production and development of COVID-19 vaccines, the vaccines themselves don’t contain fetal cells.) He also noted that, having been injured while on duty in Afghanistan and having been previously infected with the virus, he had antibodies to the virus and would be able to “continue to serve my country well.”
Gamberzky — who, at the time, was married to Anna Paulina Luna, a self-described Republican media personality who would go on to win a congressional race in 2022 to represent Florida’s 13th district, outside Tampa — quoted three verses of Scripture and ended the letter with the name and phone number of his pastor at his family’s church in Largo, Florida.
Gamberzky ultimately resigned although it is unclear if the military formally ruled on his request. In his complaint, Gamberzky was told “by members of his squadron not to bother” pursuing the request “as they were all getting denied.” He was one of roughly 17,000 service members who refused the vaccine. More than 2 million other service members, and nearly 350,000 Defense Department civilian employees, were vaccinated.
Now, Gamberzky and Luna, a member of the House Freedom Caucus and an ardent Trump supporter, are suing the Department of Defense, the Air Force, the National Guard and the Oregon Military Department in federal court, claiming the vaccine mandate violated both their constitutional First Amendment rights and religious freedoms. They are seeking damages for Gamberzky’s lost salary, medical expenses, retirement benefits and bonus pay, along with attorneys’ fees.
The complaint, filed in late November and amended this week, also cited Luna’s “then ongoing medical treatments” and the loss of healthcare coverage to them. It’s unclear from the complaint what specific medical treatments Luna paid for, and exactly how much, but the suit alleges “thousands of dollars” in out-of-pocket medical bills. She gave birth to her first child this August.
Gamberzky, Luna and their attorneys didn’t respond to MuckRock’s request for comment but, hours after this story was published, they gave interviews to The Washington Examiner, saying they hope the lawsuit would restore Gamberzky’s medical benefits and force the Defense Department to “think twice about ever doing [this] to any service member,” Luna said.
“It seems like they were trying to essentially basically destroy Andy’s career,” she said. “It definitely makes me think twice about, especially some of the things that we have coming down the pipe via legislation. And, frankly, you know, as someone who has been personally impacted by the administration’s … way in how they treated service members and just their blatant disrespect for … someone’s religious beliefs … it’s pretty wild to see. I never thought that I’d see that in the military.”
Luna was elected to Congress in 2022 and became one of 82 freshman legislators in the 118th Congress in January 2023. She has sponsored several pieces of legislation aimed directly at what she describes as government overreach, including a bill that would limit what the CDC could do in an emergency.
Gamberzky and Luna’s COVID-19 vaccine lawsuit touches on a few different flashpoints, political experts say, including the balance between public health mandates and religious freedom and the anti-vaccination movement. But it’s a rare example of a current congressional leader suing the federal government that they are actively working with. It also shines light on the precarious finances of newer and younger legislators.
Luna and Gamberzky’s lawsuit and the lawmaker’s personal financial disclosure and business records were obtained by the nonprofit newsroom MuckRock and Sunlight Search, a nonpartisan research organization focused on political candidates.
The Department of Defense ended its mandate in January 2023 and recently settled two lawsuits brought by service members over the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, paying $1.8 million for the plaintiffs’ legal fees. Of the 96 active and reserve members who died of COVID-19 complications from early 2020 through early 2022, 93 were unvaccinated.
Gamberzky, who enlisted in the Air Force at age 20 and was shot and wounded in Afghanistan in 2014, resigned from the military and was not subject to a “general discharge,” which would have allowed him to keep his medical benefits. More than 8,400 service members were discharged as a result of the military’s vaccine mandate and more than 1,000 service members received religious exemptions before the mandate was dropped.
Military service members who were discharged can apply for an “upgrade” to their benefits and can also rejoin the service but just a few dozen who were dismissed over the mandate have returned to military duty, CNN has reported.
Luna enlisted in the Air Force at age 19, and has made her service record a central part of her political campaigns. She spent her Air Force career as an airfield manager in Missouri and Florida and was granted an honorable discharge in 2014. Afterwards, she enlisted in the Oregon Air National Guard in Portland, to work alongside her husband. She graduated with a degree in biology from the University of West Florida in 2017. During that time she also modeled, worked as a cocktail waitress, became an Instagram influencer and eventually was hired as the director of Hispanic engagement for Turning Point USA, an influential conservative organization.
In recent years, to earn money in addition to her congressional salary of $174,000, Luna has worked for the conservative nonprofit media company, Prager University; as a podcast host for Gingrich 360; a bikini designer for AAF Nation; film and advertising work for the anti-sex-trafficking organization Veterans for Child Rescue; and a role at Force Blue, a conservation and scuba diving nonprofit aimed at combat veterans where Gamberzky has been listed as one of the participants, along with a number of speaking fees and paid consulting gigs. Gamberzky has reported income from Spark Insight LLC and AEVEX Aerospace, according to federal financial disclosures.
In December 2022, the couple also agreed to a paid advance from Brave Books, which on its website offers children’s book titles that “helps your kids grow into God-loving, patriotic Americans” and “partners with people of moral integrity to make a new conservative, Christian children’s book every month.” In October, they published a children’s book based on the 2020 presidential election, “The Legend of Naranja,” which features a Trump-like talking orange who has a footrace against a Biden-like talking “Señor Banana” to become the next president of a fictitious land called “Fruitland.”
In her 2022 financial disclosure report, Luna showed bank accounts with between $365,000 and $800,000 and one stock holding worth between $1,000 and $15,000.
Luna has also created at least two for-profit companies for her new ventures.
She set up a business in Vancouver, Washington, in 2018 — Anna Paulina LLC — only to dissolve it nine months later. In 2021, before being elected to Congress, Luna set up a business — AP Luna Enterprises Inc. — in Florida and then placed it in a holding company in Wyoming run by a Tampa, Florida-based law firm, which scrubbed Luna’s name from all of its paperwork. Her book advances — totaling somewhere between $5,000 and $15,000 in 2022 — went into AP Luna Enterprises.
Those proceeds were from her first published book, “Bringing Them Home: The Untold Cost of Putting Mission First,” described as a fictionalized account of young people joining the Air Force and the “challenges” they face.
Photo credit: Philip Yabut
This story has been updated to include responses by Andrew Gamberzky; Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida); and their attorneys to The Washington Examiner.
