Veterans organizations will hold a day of protests in various cities and at Department of Veterans Affairs facilities around the country on Friday, June 6, headlined by a rally in Washington, D.C. that will feature the punk and activist band Dropkick Murphys.
The protests, say organizers of the D.C. event, are aimed at speaking out against expected staffing cuts to the VA, which they say will greatly impact care for veterans.
“We want to have a big tent for this. Veterans Affairs affects more than 14 million American veterans, of every political stripe and from every socio-economic background,” Joe Plenzler, a Marine veteran, told Task & Purpose. Plenzler has previously written opinion essays for Task & Purpose about veteran issues.
Along with the Washington, D.C. rally, online organizers have plans for over 200 other events at VA facilities in nearly every state, coinciding with the 81st anniversary of D-Day and the invasion of Normandy.
Organizers of the D.C. event, dubbed the Unite for Veterans rally, say they expect several thousand people to turn out on the National Mall for the 2 p.m. event. Plenzler, one of the event’s organizers, told Task & Purpose the rally will feature several prominent veterans as speakers, including Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), former Congressman Adam Kinzinger, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America CEO Kyleanne Hunter, and Shawn Vandiver, founder of AfghanEvac, a non-profit that works to resettle Afghans in the United States.
The organizers acknowledged that the millions of veterans in the United States can have disparate political views, but one unifying aspect behind the rally is a demand that VA care and services not be diminished.
“We want to have a big tent for this. Veterans Affairs affects more than 14 million American veterans, of every political stripe and from every socio-economic background,” Plenzler said.
Plenzler said that the prospect of severe staffing cuts could both reduce care and also cost many vets their jobs, since a third of all federal employees are veterans.
“If you go into the VA, upwards of 25% of their employees are veterans. It’s veterans caring for veterans,” he said.
For its part, the VA has repeatedly claimed that personnel cuts won’t impact care.
In a statement to Task & Purpose, VA Press Secretary Peter Kasperowicz said that “anyone who says VA is cutting health care and benefits is not being honest. In fact, VA is expanding health care and benefits.”
The proposed cuts, first reported by the Associated Press, would amount to a 15% reduction of the department’s workforce. VA Secretary Douglas Collins described the number as a “goal” rather than a fixed plan last month.
Kasperowicz also accused rally organizers of opposing necessary reforms on political grounds.
“Imagine how much better off veterans would be if this union-led group cared as much about fixing the department as it does about protecting VA’s broken bureaucracy,” Kasperowicz said.
Sen. Duckworth, in a statement to Task & Purpose, said that she was outraged at the administration’s policies towards veterans.
“Donald Trump has fired more veterans than any president in modern history, and by gutting the VA he is hurting our veterans’ access to the quality health care and other benefits they’ve earned through their service,” she said.
Dusty Gannon, an Army officer who served in Afghanistan as a platoon leader, said he was planning on going to the rally because he sees a disconnect between how veterans in the U.S. are venerated and how they’re cared for.
“We have this whole [generation] of veterans who fought in all of these conflicts who are all coming home, and the government is failing us,” he said. “They’ve just left us high and dry.”
Gannon said he hopes the rally will be a chance to meet and spend time with fellow veterans who understand the “gravity of the experience,” he said.
Nationally, organizers are tracking the times and locations of rallies on a central online spreadsheet.
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