‘I Grew Up Learning How to Protect My Rights’: Army Veteran Says She Was Arrested at a VA Clinic in 2021 for Refusing to Wear a Mask

An X post from @libsoftiktok shared a video of a woman identified as Carolynn Wood describing an arrest she says took place in 2021 at the VA clinic in Kernersville, North Carolina, after she refused to wear a mask.

The post said Wood was "sharing her story now for the first time in light of the Fauci hearings," a reference to former NIAID director Anthony Fauci's Senate testimony in front of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in late July 2026, in which he invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times, according to ABC7 News.

In the video, Wood said she is a 22-year Army veteran who grew up in North Carolina and learned from Korean War and Vietnam War-era veterans "how to protect my rights and protect the rights of others."

She refused to wear a mask, citing a past incident in which a shirt was pulled over her head. She said the experience caused panic attacks whenever her face was covered.

Wood said she was pulled outside the clinic and told she would have to leave, but did not go because she still needed her glasses. Staff pulled her husband from a cardiology appointment at the same clinic and told him his wife was being arrested, she said. She said other patients walked past her yelling at her to "comply and do what they tell you to do" as she was taken into custody.

She said she waited six years to share her story publicly and that some family members cut off contact with her afterward, calling her "too dangerous."

Several replies praised Wood for speaking out. One commenter wrote, "I appreciate this lady's courage of her convictions! She was absolutely in the right. It is sad how many compliant little sheep were happy to violate other people's Constitutional right based on their fear! It was similar to how the Jews were treated leading into the Holocaust."

Wood was then taken to the Forsyth County Jail and later released with a court date. She said the VA ultimately dropped the charges, but that the arrest still cost her a position as a guardian ad litem, since she had been arrested for trespassing on federal property.

Others agreed mask mandates were wrong but questioned her approach. One person wrote, "The mask mandates were wrong, but it sounds like she chose to make her stand foolishly. I'd say she owns the consequences."

Another questioned her reluctance to use a mask, writing, "Masks don't work! Next time YOU have surgery or cancer treatment, insist the doctors and nurses don't wear masks! You'd be helping make the world a better place a little bit at a time!"

The Daily Dot was unable to independently verify the arrest, dropped charges, or job loss described by Carolynn Wood in this video. A search of public records and news archives found no corroboration of Wood's account. The details above reflect Wood's own account as shared on X.