At the risk of again offending one of my recent critics who said President Donald Trump and the Republicans are the patriots of today,” I’d like to say a kind word for the real patriots — the veterans who are currently being fired from their jobs at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Military.com, a website that provides news, information and resources for U.S. service members, veterans and their families, said the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) organization released a video about fired veterans calling widespread Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s federal job cuts “a betrayal of their service.”

The DAV has launched a “Protect Veterans” campaign, called “an effort to showcase the plight of fired veterans.” The organization said its campaign to solicit comments from fired veterans came from the suggestions of Republicans and Democrats at a joint hearing of the House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committee last month to bring them examples of veterans who have been adversely affected by the job cuts.

The veterans they heard from said they were blindsided by their terminations.” Nine of the more than 80 veterans — some of them disabled and some from the veterans community at large — were quoted.

Kara Oliver, a disabled Navy veteran who was fired from her recreational therapist job at the John D. Dingell Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Detroit, said, “It’s not about me, it’s about our veterans. What’s happening to them is wrong and I want to fight for them.”

Oliver added, “I found out I lost my job off the clock, on my day off — without a warning, without a meeting, without even a termination letter.”

Albert Ostering, an Air Force veteran, who was fired from his job at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said, “I lost my way to provide for my family, our health care, my purpose and call-to-service.” He was fired after 10 years of working at the agency.

Ostering said as a result of his firing and other dismissals at the agency, “the nation will become less safe from cyber threat actors.”

Daniel Contreras, national commander of the DAV, said, “It’s heart-wrenching to hear from veterans who are contacting us with fear and anxiety about the future of the benefits, services and health care they’ve earned.”

Contreras added, “But hearing from those who sustained illnesses and injuries in honorable service to our nation, only to later be arbitrarily fired via email by the same federal government they’ve devoted their lives to serve, is a gut punch.”

In a response to the DAV report, VA Press Secretary Peter Kasperowicz said in an email statement that “we regret when anyone loses their job, and it’s extremely difficult for department leaders to make those types of decisions. But the federal government does not exist to employ people. It exists to serve people.”

Not a reasonable explanation and sad comments. Randy Reese, executive director of the DAV’s Washington headquarters, had more encouraging news. He said the swiftness and aggressiveness of the job cuts coming from the Trump administration initially came as a surprise, but the DAV has since mobilized to oppose them.

Reese said, “It was just a series of things — the speed of it and how they did it.” He said the way billionaire Elon Musk was going about the job cuts made it seem that its game plan was “to  come in and terminate” jobs as quickly as it could and “figure out later whether it was a good decision.”

Rebecca Cintron, who was fired from her job assisting in setting up electronic health records, said the dismissal came as a shock since “we were always told how much we were needed.”

Cintron added, “We all understand that everyone has to sacrifice, but I wish somebody understood how differently this could have been done rather than just a panic and no processes.”

Like other federal firings, this is just another one that came at the expense of Musk’s love of running around with a chainsaw. Even Trump eventually realized his job reduction plan called for a scalpel approach.

Veterans continue to have trouble navigating the VA health care system, inadequate health and mental care support, long wait times at VA facilities and poor access in rural areas. If there is one federal agency that needed to be spared of job cuts, it’s the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Jim Beam, the retired editor of the American Press, has covered people and politics for more than six decades. Contact him at 337-515-8871 or jim.beam.press@gmail.com.

ReplyForward Add reaction