After years in the Army and Marines, a veteran thought he’d found a new way to serve, helping low-income Americans with applications for home improvement grants at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
But that ended Feb. 13 when he was fired as part of massive cuts across the Federal workforce, a purge that has seen thousands of veterans at federal agencies lose their jobs.
“They just looked at who was the easiest to get rid of and they just kinda gave them the boot,” said Ben, who asked that his last name not be used. “It feels like getting stabbed in the back.”
Ben told Task & Purpose that he had sought out a federal job “ironically, for stability.” He used his GI Bill, went to college and then entered a competitive pathway program for recent graduates. Ben found himself at the USDA, where he worked with low-income families, older Americans, and veterans on applications for housing grants to fix health and safety hazards in their homes.
“They really appreciated our work because it’s not like we were just a face of a bureaucrat working with a contractor, but we work with people directly,” he said. “These are people that have no money, no savings, very little income, and they may not have running water, they may not have working heaters in the winter. The grants that we process allowed them to fix that because that’s a safety hazard.”
The federal layoffs have targeted probationary workers who have been in their roles for under a year and do not qualify for civil service protections. Ben had been on the job 11 months and was three weeks away from being converted into a permanent position where he would’ve had more job protections. His status as a disabled veteran made no difference in his firing. Neither did his excellent job performance — he earned a $500 Individual Special Act or Service Award in 2024 — nor the fact that he was working in person at his agency’s office.
6,000 veterans so far
Ben was one of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who made up 30% of the federal workforce before President Donald Trump’s administration and the Department of Government Efficiency began a purge of federal employees. Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee estimate that nearly 6,000 veterans have been let go so far with tens of thousands likely to be dismissed in coming weeks.
“Veterans kind of predominate in these probationary statuses because they’re career switchers,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) told reporters Thursday. “This is a war on veterans. This is Donald Trump looking veterans in the eye and saying, ‘you’re fired.’”
The impacts have garnered blunt reactions from vet groups like the Veterans of Foreign Wars. VFW leadership issued a statement, saying that veterans “are being indiscriminately harmed in this bull-’DOGE’-ing of the federal workforce.” VFW also noted that “gainful employment” is a social determinant of health and helps combat “one of the root causes of veteran suicide.”
Two other veterans who were fired in recent weeks shared their stories at a virtual Vote Vets press conference Thursday: Frances Greeley, a former Coast Guard officer, and Dustin Conklin, a Navy veteran.
Greeley worked as a Coast Guard contracting officer and then went on to do acquisitions in Washington state for the General Services Administration, which handles contracts for a variety of federal agency needs like real estate, IT services and other equipment.
Greeley said she was in good standing at a job that was on the “front lines” of improving government efficiency, the very reason that the administration and DOGE have given for the mass layoffs.
“We are the people who write the scope of works, increase competition and do all of the things that save the government money,” she said. “It’s vitally important for the government to prevent the waste, fraud and abuse, to spend the dollars correctly.”
Greeley said her supervisors were not told about her job being eliminated. In fact, Greeley was the one to forward them her termination letter.
Conklin took a job as an archaeologist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Virginia before being asked to move states for the agency.
“The USDA moved me out here. I left where I was secure. I left my support network. I left friends. Me and my partner, we picked up and we came to Illinois, so I’ve been here since the end of September,” he said.
As an archaeologist, Conklin said there are limited opportunities, so “you kind of go where the work is.” His partner is also a federal probationary worker whose job is on the line.
“I’m gonna lose my health insurance that covers me and my daughter,” he said. “My health insurance is pretty important to me because I have regular therapy appointments and access to antidepressants and anxiety medication that I’m about to lose.”
More Pentagon layoffs expected
Democratic Senators claim that additional layoffs could include 35,000 to 56,000 Department of Defense civilians, nearly half of which are veterans, under “large-scale” workforce reductions the White House wants to see in March and April. The Pentagon announced cuts of 5,400 probationary employees last week.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told reporters Thursday there would be national security implications for downsizing the DoD civilian workforce which handles military logistics, maintenance and repairs for equipment, acquisitions, and base security.
“What’s really important is not all the shiny toys and the missiles and the planes. The most important factor is our human element of talent and skill and dedication, and that’s true of our military in uniform, and it’s true of our civilian workforce, half of whom have served in uniform,” he said.
A bill by Rep. Derek Tran (D-Calif.), an Army veteran and former employment lawyer, aims to reinstate qualified veterans who were “involuntarily removed or otherwise dismissed without cause” from their civil service position since Jan. 20. It’s unclear if the bill, introduced by a Democrat, would pass the Republican-controlled House.