Imagine this. You risk your country. Leave friends and family behind. Go abroad. Watch your friends die or life change forever. You go home. Adjustment is not easy. Nightmare gets you up. That old military injury never really healed. You work full time, go to school, just to do that.
Then one day, you will receive an email. “Congratulations, we provide you with the tentative work of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs,” the Department of Defense, U.S. Agency for International Development, or other agencies. Finally, after years of sacrifice, you have a fresh start. You buy a house, get married, have children, and even travel.
Ten years have passed. You have built a life. Your career is stable, performance reviewed, and is now a family and mortgage loan. You did it. Your service is rewarded. You finally realized the American dream.
Then there was a promotional opportunity. It's just that you need to book a raise for your dream vacation with your family. The only gain? A short trial period. It's no big deal. You have an excellent track record in federal services and military. You want this job.
Then, Elon Musk, an unelected billionaire who has nothing to do with the military, fired you. Everything you build, immediately on a whim, is unrelated to your service, sacrifice or career.
On the eve of Valentine's Day, it was a cruel blow from Trump and Musk, and the veterans in the United States have been dealt with. This week's administration began actively laying off thousands of government employees in multiple agencies and striving to defeat veterans. The Department of Veterans Affairs confirmed late Thursday night that it had abandoned more than 1,000 probation employees this week.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Forest Service is firing 3,400 employees. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has fired probation workers as well as full-time contract employees. Other affected institutions include the Ministry of Education, the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the General Service Administration (GSA), where the termination letter has been made available to hundreds of employees in the nearest. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has been actively coordinating the layoffs of individual federal agencies, and all OPM's probation personnel themselves have rejected them on a collective call. Musk's team also reportedly arrived at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which heightened concerns about deep cuts.
This comprehensive tailor is part of Musk's "cost cut program," the so-called Ministry of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has gained access to sensitive personnel and financial data in at least 16 agencies. Some agencies, such as the United States Agency for International Development, are already completely in trouble. Overall, Doge's goal is to have more than 200,000 federal employees fired.
The Trump administration launched a full-scale attack on veterans, their families and federal workers who supported them. One-third of all federal employees are veterans, and there is no doubt that the latest layoffs from the Department of Veterans Affairs are just the beginning.
Trump's executive order "implements the Presidential Department of Efficiency Labor Optimization Program", one of the most destructive federal labor policies in history. For every four employees leaving, only one employee can be replaced. This is a disaster for VA, which is already insufficient. Veterans’ health care, disability claims and support services depend on the adequate labor force. Cutting hiring can ensure the backlog of people relying on VA services, exacerbating care and increasing suffering. With the aging population of older people and the expansion of VA tasks in previous governments, it is time to invest in VA instead of the gut.
Trump's executive order not only stops restricting new employees; it also forces immediate reduction of effective layoffs, without a clearly stipulated position in the law. This means executives, veterans outreach programs and transition assistance services will be one of the first services to go out. These programs provide important support for transitional service members, veterans seeking jobs and overseas military families. Many rely on these programs for childcare, work placement and legal guidance programs, services that help make the transition from military life to civilian life. Now veterans and their families are left to support themselves.
Worse, VA's hiring process is now controlled by Musk's "team leader" who has final approval for new employees. Now, recruitment decisions are not based on performance systems, but are subject to unnecessary delays and potential political intervention. Some of these so-called team leaders seem to have no government experience, but rather young political agents with extreme and racist views. The Doge website appears to be porous security at best, raising concerns about pseudo-government agencies accessing veteran data. Virginia is already working to address the severe labor shortage in the healthcare and welfare handling roles.
This new bureaucratic bottleneck ensures that recruitment will stagnate completely without veterans’ service. But that might be the point-by making VA so dysfunctional, veterans are either silent or forced into the private sector where profits are only before taking care of them.
The government claims it is "saving money", but no one can point out a real number. Meanwhile, the State Department spent almost $400 million on "armored Tesla" for government use - until public censorship forces them to back off. Despite this, Musk's company continues to go through tens of billions of dollars in government subsidies. Trump and Musk use federal resources to enrich themselves, while the administration scrambles to fund the president’s massive eviction program and expands tax cuts in 2017, which has benefited the company from companies and super-rich. Who pays the price? Veterans, federal employees and military families.
On Valentine's Day, many veterans won't celebrate with their families. Instead, they will work hard to pay for mortgages, car payments and childcare fees. Despite their services, many people never get the rewards they get in federal employment, often only in entry-level positions, because military jobs do not always translate directly into civilian sectors. Meanwhile, Musk and Trump (the richest and most powerful people in the world) smashed veterans like ants under a sledgehammer. Regardless of the cause, the damage is undeniable.