About Freaking Time! VFW Blasts DOGE Firings

This has been TOO long in coming. You all know how Elon Musk’s DOGE is tearing through the federal government with indiscriminate firings and Trump doing nothing to stop it. Hell, Trump said Musk should be more aggressive!  The thing many don’t realize is that roughly a third of the federal workforce is made up of Veterans. Of that, roughly half have some sort of service connected disability.  Plenty have already lost their jobs and not just those in probationary status. Plenty more know they could get fired at any time.  As a Veteran myself I’ve been wondering, appalled actually at the silence from our two largest Veteran’s organizations. In fact their silence has been deafening, but no longer. The head honcho at the Veteran’s of Foreign Wars is speaking out and forcefully. Again, as a grunt I’m saying it’s about f**king time!

According to The Military Times VFW National Commander (Vietnam Veteran) is training his fire on Elon Musk and DOGE for what’s happening to Veterans. He’s forcefully condemned the firings which have already hit thousands across multiple agencies:

“Since the federal government is the single largest employer of veterans in the nation, it’s veterans who are being indiscriminately harmed in this bull-‘DOGE’-ing of the federal workforce,” wrote Lipphardt, using a play on words about the new agency tasked with carrying out the cuts, the Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE.

Lipphardt noted the VFW has roughly 1.4 million members at about 6000 posts around the country. And they are making their feelings known. They are NOT at all okay with what’s going on and sharing the firing emails with leaders at their posts and up the chain. Lipphardt indicated words like “disjointed,” “inconsistent”, given “little to no oversight or thought,” are what he’s hearing. He went on to criticize DOGE for using algorithms and email lists instead of taking a more nuance approach. Then he gave a personal and graphic example as an analogy to make his point:

“I was wounded in combat during the Vietnam War. I am thankful that the medics who treated me chose not to take my whole arm for the sake of efficiency,” Lipphardt said. “It took a trained eye, a skillful hand and human intuition to fix me up and get me back in the fight. In my experience, those operating with a scalpel have a better chance at saving limbs than those who operate with a chainsaw.”

I’m quite certain that last part about ‘those who operate with a chainsaw’ was a direct shot at Elon Musk!  Well, Lipphardt will be testifying to Congress next week (March 4 – mark the date on your calendars) and is calling on other Veteran’s to join him.  Musk, like Trump and the mostly chicken hawks in Congress fancy themselves as tough guys. They will be facing a witness backed up by a room of ACTUAL tough guys and gals who all risked their asses on battlefields far away. And often left blood and even body parts behind.

So we finally have the VFW, typically a group that leans conservative (the old trope about Republicans caring about the military to which I say what planet have you been living on) pissed off at Trump and  his minion, and Congress Critters too afraid to stand up and force the end of Musk and DOGE in our government. That’s a start at least. Now it’s time for the much larger American Legion to stand up and condemn what’s going on. For now I encourage you to read the full linked article. I know this blog is read by mostly progressives but over many decades I’ve found The Military Times (and their service specific derivatives – I used to read the Navy Times every week while on active duty) has delivered a LOT of solid reporting on military and Veteran’s issues.

For now, when contacting your Congress Critters you can make note of the fact the VFW is now out for Musk’s, Trump’s and other GOP enabler’s ass!

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