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Some veterans are throwing their support behind the Trump administration’s cost-cutting measures – even those that could affect the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
However, others worry about the impact of the cuts, saying they could put veterans “in the ground”.
Stephen Watson, a 68-year-old Marine veteran from Jesup, Georgia, receives VA care for a traumatic brain injury. He backs President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s cost-cutting initiative.
“We’re no better because we’re veterans,” Watson said.
“We all need to take a step back and realize that everybody’s gonna have to take a little bit on the chin to get these budget matters under control.”
But Gregg Bafundo, a 53-year-old Gulf War veteran residing in Tonasket, Washington, worries about the impact of potential cuts.
Bafundo, who suffers from nerve damage due to his service as a Marine mortarman, anticipates needing VA care after losing his job as a wilderness ranger and firefighter due to U.S. Forest Service layoffs.
“They’re going to put guys like me and my fellow Marines that rely on the VA in the ground,” he said.
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Over 9 million veterans rely on the VA for physical and mental health care, a department currently under scrutiny by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
With a budget exceeding $350 billion, the VA manages nearly 200 medical centers and hospitals, many located in Republican-led states and districts. Veterans have publicly voiced their opposition to the proposed cuts at town hall meetings, and organizations like the Veterans of Foreign Wars are actively mobilizing against the measures.
Veterans were much likelier to support Trump, a Republican, than Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, in November’s presidential election, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of the American electorate conducted in all 50 states. Nearly six in 10 voters who are veterans backed Trump, while about four in 10 voted for Harris.
Joy Ilem, national legislative director for the nonpartisan group Disabled American Veterans, said her group was studying how the ongoing cuts might affect care.
“You could lose trust among the veteran population over some of these things that have happened and the way that they’ve happened,” Ilem warned.
“And we do fear damage to the recruitment and retention of hiring the best and brightest to serve veterans.”
The White House’s proposed $2 billion cut to VA contracts has sparked concern over potential disruptions to crucial healthcare services, ranging from cancer care to toxic exposure assessments. The cuts were swiftly paused by the VA following an outcry over the potential impact on veterans.
The move came as over 1,000 short-term VA employees – reportedly including researchers focused on critical health issues like cancer treatment, opioid addiction, prosthetics, and burn pit exposure – were dismissed in February.
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VA Secretary Doug Collins, in an interview with Fox News Channel, said that the cost-cutting efforts aimed to identify “deficiencies” within the system. He said that any actions taken would not compromise veterans’ healthcare or earned benefits.
In a statement on Tuesday, VA press secretary Peter Kasperowicz reiterated the agency’s commitment to prioritizing veterans’ needs in all its operations.
The proposed cuts and recent dismissals, however, raise questions about how this commitment will be upheld in practice.
“Every dollar we spend on wasteful contracts, non-mission-critical or duplicative activities is one less dollar we can spend on Veterans, and given that choice, we will always side with the Veteran,” Kasperowicz wrote.
Republicans have pointed out that the VA has rehired employees who were let go during an initial round of layoffs in February, such as those working for a crisis hotline. However, during a subsequent round of layoffs, the VA cut 15 other employees who were in jobs supporting the crisis line, including a trainer for the phone responders, according to congressional staff who are tracking the cuts.
The VA has long faced calls for reform
The VA has been plagued for years by allegations of poor medical care and excessively long wait times. Investigators a decade ago uncovered widespread problems in how VA hospitals were scheduling appointments after allegations that as many as 40 veterans died while awaiting care at the department’s Phoenix hospital. A group of employees accused the department of retaliating against potential whistleblowers.
President Barack Obama, a Democrat, eventually put into place a program allowing veterans to go outside the VA system to seek medical care. The Choice Program was extended by Trump during his first term.
Richard Lamb, who was shot down twice in Vietnam as an Army helicopter crew chief, said the department should be “cut to the bone.”
Lamb, 74, said he broke vertebrae each time his helicopter was shot down. Decades passed, he said, before a private doctor – not the VA – found compression fractures and performed surgery.
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“I’d be happy to see VA, not torn down, but cleaned up, cleaned out and recast,” said Lamb, who lives in Waco, Texas. “The VA is supposed to be a wonderful thing for veterans. It’s not. It sucks.”
Daniel Ragsdale Combs, a Navy veteran with a traumatic brain injury, strongly disagrees.
Ragsdale Combs, 45, suffered his injury while running to respond to an order on an aircraft carrier and striking his head above a hatchway. He receives group therapy for mental illness brought on by the injury but says he had heard those sessions might be canceled or reduced due to staffing shortages.
“I’m deeply concerned because the VA has been nothing but great to me,” said Ragsdale Combs, who lives in Mesa, Arizona. “I’m angry, upset and frustrated.”
Lucy Wong relies on a team of VA doctors in the Phoenix area to treat her scleroderma, an autoimmune condition that attacks connective tissue. She said she developed the disease as a medical technician in the Navy in the 1980s, working with toxic chemicals and enduring extreme stress.
Driving is difficult. She worries that the VA will cut Uber rides to her medical appointments, among other things.
“I ask if Trump is cutting anything back here, and the reply is, ‘Not yet,’” Wong said.
Josh Ghering, a former Marine from Parsons, Kansas, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he had to fly to San Antonio for an appointment with a neurologist before he was medically retired for back issues, including herniated discs. He questioned why he could not get the same appointment closer to home.
“I think they’re headed in the right direction,” Ghering, 42, said of DOGE. “But they’re going to have to be more thorough with what it is they’re doing, to make sure they’re not cutting jobs that are needed.”
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Will service members be expected to accept VA cuts?
The nation’s service members have never been a political monolith, and the same holds true for their views on the VA. But the split between two Marines on opposite sides of the country raises a question not just about DOGE but about America’s military: Who is expected to sacrifice?
Watson, the former Marine in Georgia, sustained various injuries while serving, including a traumatic brain injury when a cable snapped and a crate fell on him. He said he’s willing to accept fewer visits to his VA doctor and forgo other conveniences as a matter of service to the country.
“Many veterans who voted for Trump understood this was going to be his policy and are now screaming bloody murder because the axe is going to fall upon the VA,” Watson said. “And to me, that’s just a little bit self-centered.”
Bafundo, the Marine in Washington state, pushed back against the idea that all Americans are making a sacrifice when, as he sees it, it’s really falling back “on the little guy.”
America’s billionaires won’t be shouldering any of the burden, he argued, while Musk, who’s the world’s richest person, and others pay little, if any, taxes.
“If we’re going to sacrifice, the wealthy need to sacrifice, too,” he said. “And, frankly, they don’t.”
