A local Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) chapter in Wyoming reached out to the DC headquarters to tell them an office manager at their veteran center had been let go. On the receiving end of that message was VFW spokesperson Rob Couture, a 24-year Army combat veteran who directly interacts with Congress, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the White House and other parts of the administration that impact veterans.
“This person that was let go, she had a stellar performance review, but in the termination letter it says, ‘… due to your performance,’” Couture said. “There [are] inconsistencies. It’s unfairly impacting veterans.”
To date, the VA — in collaboration with the Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk — has dismissed 2,400 employees in an effort to comply with an executive order meant as a “workforce optimization initiative.” This executive order was signed by President Donald Trump on Feb. 11, 2025.
The VA plans to cut approximately 83,000 jobs by August 2025, with the aim of reverting federal staffing levels to where they were in 2019, prior to the expansion under the 2022 PACT Act. At that time, the VA sought to hire to ensure veterans received the PACT Act-related benefits in a timely manner.
VFW National Commander Al Lipphardt said in a Feb. 14 statement, “Between the reports of mass employee layoffs, funding freezes, program cuts, and agency restructures across the entire government, it is hard to know exactly what to sound the alarm about.”
Veterans who contacted Lipphardt and his office worry about federal benefit programs and the federal workforce, to include 1,000 VA probationary employees who were let go in mid-February, prompting his statement.
“The thing is, when it comes to cuts to the federal government, most people just look at those cuts in Washington, D.C.,” Couture said. “They say, ‘Drain the swamp.’”
Couture clarified that the people in those positions within the VA and other agencies are not limited to Washington but are spread across the country.
“A lot of them are veterans themselves, and they chose after service to continue on serving other veterans within that frame of the government,” Couture said.
The most recent data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management showed that as of 2021, the 24 Chief Financial Officer Act agencies employed a total of 636,937 veterans. That means veterans make up 30% of the total 2,143,449 employee federal workforce.
“The people that call me were very much an integral part to what was going on,” Couture said.
Larry Dandridge is a former Veteran Service Officer, a VA volunteer patient advisor and a former vice president for Veteran Affairs for the Association of the U.S. Army and Military Officers Association of America chapters in Charleston, South Carolina. He is also a 100% service-connected disabled combat veteran. He said that the veterans he knows and helps every day are “worried about what appears to be unskilled, uninformed and shoot-before-aiming actions being taken by our government to change VA healthcare.”
On Feb. 25, Lipphardt testified before a joint session of Congress for both the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs and the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. There, he delivered the VFW’s priorities as well as addressed the most recent events occurring among the workforce.
In his message, Lipphardt said that as a result of these firings, including another 1,400 prior to his address, that “the American people are losing technical expertise, training and security clearances already bought and paid for by taxpayers.”
Additionally, Lipphardt entered the joint session armed with a DD Form 4, the standard enlistment contract for service members as they enter into the U.S. Armed Forces. He stated to lawmakers that the contract is “more than an employment agreement.”
“This isn’t charity. This is a contract,” he said. “Everyone who served honorably, like every member of the VFW, met our end of this agreement. We demand our leaders do the same. By contract, you must ensure the VA has the resources and staff to provide veterans their full earned benefits. This is not an ask. Honor the contract!”
Couture encouraged veterans to “speak up about it,” by contacting their local elected officials, taking to social media and by reaching out to the media.
“If they’re not going to pause and think about what they’re doing and how it’s affecting veterans, then we have to speak up for ourselves.”
