Trump and Musk’s Valentine’s Day Massacre of Military Veterans
Picture this. You risk everything for your country. Leave friends and family behind. Go overseas. Watch your friends die or have their lives changed forever. You come home. Adjusting isn’t easy. The nightmares keep you up. That old military injury never really heals. You work full-time, go to school, scrape by just to make it.
Then one day, you get the email. “Congratulations, we are offering you a tentative job at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs,” or at the Department of Defense, or the USAID, or another agency. Finally, after years of sacrifice, you have a fresh start. You buy a home, get married, have kids, maybe even travel.
Ten years go by. You’ve built a life. You have a steady career, glowing performance evaluations, and now a family and a mortgage. You did it. Your service paid off. You’re finally living the American Dream.
Then a promotion opportunity comes along. Just the raise you need to book that dream vacation with your family. The only catch? A short probationary period. No big deal. You’ve had a stellar record in federal service and the military. You take the job.
Then Elon Musk, an unelected billionaire with no ties to the military, fires you. Everything you built, gone in an instant, at the whim of someone who has nothing to do with your service, your sacrifice, or your career.
On the eve of this Valentine’s Day, that is the brutal blow Trump and Musk have dealt to America’s veterans. The administration this week began aggressively laying off thousands of government employees across multiple agencies, hitting veterans hard. The Department of Veterans Affairs confirmed late Thursday night that it has let go of more than 1,000 probationary employees this week.
The U.S. Forest Service, meanwhile, is dismissing 3,400 employees. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has fired probationary workers, as well as full-time contract employees. Other affected agencies include the Department of Education, the Small Business Administration (SBA), and the General Services Administration (GSA), where termination letters have gone out to hundreds of recent hires. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has been actively coordinating these layoffs across federal agencies, with all probationary staff at OPM itself dismissed in a group call. Musk’s team has also reportedly arrived at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), fueling fears of deep cuts.
This sweeping downsizing is part of Musk’s “cost-cutting initiative,” the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has already gained access to sensitive personnel and financial data in at least 16 agencies. Some agencies, like USAID, have been gutted completely. In all, DOGE is targeting over 200,000 federal employees for dismissal.
Trump’s administration has launched a full-scale attack on veterans, their families, and federal workers who support them. A third of all federal employees are military veterans, and make no mistake, the latest round of layoffs at the Department of Veterans Affairs is just the beginning.
Trump’s executive order, “Implementing the President’s Department of Government Efficiency Workforce Optimization Initiative,” imposes one of the most damaging federal workforce policies in history. For every four employees who leave, only one can be replaced. For an already understaffed VA, this is a disaster. Veterans’ medical care, disability claims, and support services depend on an adequate workforce. Slashing hiring ensures growing backlogs, worsening care, and increased suffering for those who rely on VA services. With an aging veteran population and an expanded VA mission under previous administrations, now is the time to invest in the VA, not gut it.
Trump’s executive order doesn’t just stop at limiting new hires; it also forces immediate reductions in force, cutting positions that aren’t explicitly mandated by law. This means administrative staff, veteran outreach programs, and transition assistance services will be among the first to go. These programs provide critical support for transitioning service members, veterans seeking jobs, and military families overseas. Many depend on these programs for child care, job placement, and legal guidance — services that help make the transition from military to civilian life possible. Now, veterans and their families are being left to fend for themselves.
To make matters worse, the hiring process at the VA is now controlled by Musk’s DOGE “team leads,” who have final approval over new employees. Instead of a merit-based system, hiring decisions are now subject to unnecessary delays and potential political interference. Some of these so-called team leads do not appear to have any government experience, and are instead young political operatives with extremist and racist views. The DOGE website seems to have porous security at best, raising concerns about the pseudo government agency having access to veterans’ data. The VA is already grappling with a severe workforce shortage in medical and benefits processing roles.
This new bureaucratic bottleneck ensures hiring will stall completely, leaving veterans without the services they need. But that may be the point — by making the VA so dysfunctional, veterans will either suffer in silence or be forced into the private sector, where profits come before care.
The administration claims it’s “saving money,” yet no one can point to a real number. Meanwhile, the State Department nearly spent $400 million on “armored Teslas” for government use — until public scrutiny forced them to back out. Still, Musk’s companies continue raking in tens of billions in government subsidies. Trump and Musk exploit federal resources to enrich themselves, while the administration is scrambling to fund the president’s mass deportation plans and extend the 2017 tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited corporations and the ultra-wealthy. And who’s paying the price? Veterans, federal employees, and military families.
This Valentine’s Day, many military veterans won’t be celebrating with their families. Instead, they’ll be struggling to pay their mortgages, car payments, and child care costs. Despite their service, many will never receive the rewards they’ve earned in federal employment, often qualifying only for entry-level positions because military jobs don’t always translate directly to the civilian sector. Meanwhile, Musk and Trump — two of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful men — have crushed veterans like ants under a sledgehammer. Regardless of the reasons, the damage is undeniable.
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