Posting #42: The Story of Veterans and the VA (Part I)

This is Part 1 of a two-part posting. In this posting I outline the benefits and services military veterans receive and how some of these benefits and services are threatened by the current administration. In Part 2 (to be published on June 4), I continue summarizing the threats.

The story: We Americans are told that our military veterans are to be honored and cherished because they have voluntarily protected us. We act on this honoring and cherishing by supporting them after they have left the service. We give veterans lifetime healthcare, prioritize their employment with the federal government, offer them home loans for no down payment and at lower interest rates, give them tax-free financial benefits for service-connected disabilities, offer them tuition assistance for education via the GI Bill, deliver life insurance, provide benefits to veteran-owned businesses, provide burial benefits and reserve a spot for them and their family members at Arlington National Cemetery, and endow their history with stories of their service. All of these benefits are regarded as the least we can do for our national champions.

My take on the story: In only a matter of months, Trump and the Republicans have dishonored veterans by firing them and cutting veterans’ services. But before I get into that, I review quickly the ins and outs of these benefits.

· In the first place, not all former military members are considered “veterans.” Before the end of 2016, being a “veteran” required that one received anything but a dishonorable discharge and served either on active duty—that is, full-time—or was called to active duty by the Commander-in-Chief for at least 180 days from the National Guard and the Reserves. Now, if National Guard or Reserve members serve (part-time) for at least 20 years and never are called to active duty, they are officially known as “veterans”…but don’t garner any additional benefits.

Still, the Senior Veterans Service Alliance reports that: “Since the Gulf War in 1990, 64% of all 1.2 million National Guard and reserve troops have been called up—some more than once. Between 2001 and 2003 alone, President Bush called up more than 300,000 Guard and Reserve members” for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. By my calculations, this awards veterans’ benefits to approximately 768K Guard and Reservists, for a total of more than 18M veterans in the US.

· In the second place, not all veterans are eligible for all of these benefits. For instance, I was not eligible for what is known as the GI Bill, a benefit that was available to most post-World War II veterans from 1945 to 1956 largely to prevent unemployment as millions of men returned to the workforce. This Bill offered educational benefits, home loans, and employment advice. The Bill’s educational benefits were extended in 1984 (by which time I had completed my active-duty service) and is a benefit that continues for most veterans who have served at least two years on active duty. The educational benefits were extended again in 2008 and made available to all active-duty veterans—and their dependents—who served after September 10, 2001 for at least ten years. Finally, in 2017, the most recent extension made it easier for members of the National Guard and Reservists to access the benefits of the 2008 act.

Still, according to Inside Higher Ed on April 21, 2025, even though “(53 percent) of veterans and service members surveyed by Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families cited educational benefits as a key reason for joining the military,” “too few veterans are taking full advantage of what the GI Bill offers” and “are significantly underrepresented across higher education.”

In addition to educational benefits, there are still many other benefits to being a veteran.

1. Under federal law, veterans are given preferential treatment in hiring federal employees. Veterans have:

preference over others in hiring from competitive lists of eligibles and also in retention during reductions in force. In addition to receiving preference in competitive appointments, Veterans may be considered for special noncompetitive appointments for which only they are eligible.

Consequently, for instance, as of November 2024, veterans make up roughly 30% of the 3M persons federal workforce, one quarter of the Veterans’ Administration 482K employees, and, as of 2021, 45.8% of the Department of Defense’s 330K civilian employees.

2. The Veterans’ Health Administration (VHA) offers healthcare to approximately 9M veterans at 1225 locations. Again, this benefit only applies to official “veterans,” not to National Guard or Reservists who never were called up by the CINC to active duty. Also, a veteran is not required to use the VHA but must register to be included on its roster. Finally, if a veteran has one of twelve characteristics (like a bona fide disability, qualifies for Medicaid, or had exposure to toxins from service), they can apply for “enhanced eligibility status.”

Here is some of what the VHA offers:

o Physical healthcare, including preventive care (like physical exams, vaccinations, substance abuse, chronic pain management, and prescriptions), inpatient hospital care (like surgeries, dialysis, and organ transplants), and urgent care.

o Mental healthcare, including for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Military Sexual Trauma (MST), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), Suicide prevention, depression, grief, and anxiety. Many of these cares are in-person, some with psychiatrists, others with “peer coaches” and group counseling, but the VHA also offers apps and online sources to veterans. Also, former military people who do not qualify as veterans can access certain mental healthcare, like for MST.

o Research. With such a large and diverse sociodemographic study group over a broad swath of time, the VHA is unparalleled in its ability to conduct research. It spends about $916M a year on determining, for instance, the connection between smoking and cancer, how to measure and treat prostate cancer, the causes of cardiovascular disease, how poverty and race shape veteran health outcomes, and issues of substance use and mental health.

3. Veterans, active-duty servicemembers, some National Guard and Reservists, and eligible surviving spouses have access to Veterans’ Administration home loans. Because private lenders provide these mortgage loans but the VA guarantees a portion of them, there are:

No down payments

Lower interest rates

Limited closing costs

No Private Mortgage Insurance

As of August 2024, the VA reported that “approximately 2.3 million service members and veterans are actively participating in VA home loan programs,” and that, since the VA home loan program started in 1944, more than 25 million homes have been financed in this way. In 2020 alone, the VA guaranteed loans totaling $363B.

4. Pensions. Veterans and some Reservists and Guard members who have served for 20 years receive a pension based on their final rank. As I wrote in Posting 12, “The Story of Self-Sacrifice and Military Life,”

Since the privatization of retirement savings in the late 1970s and early 1980s, pensions have become a rarity in the US civilian world. They still exist in the US military world. Servicemembers who work on active duty for 20 or more years are eligible for a taxable retirement pension. For many servicemembers, this means they will retire at a young enough age—late 30s, early 40s—to take up other gainful employment. The amount of their annual pension payment relies on their final pay grade/rank. For instance, an E7 could retire with a $27,827 annual payment, and an O7 could retire with a $96,542 annual payment.

(Btw: Social Security payments are unaffected by having a military pension.)

The cost of all these benefits? For FY2025, the Biden Administration’s VA requested a 9.8% increase over the FY2024 budget, or $369.3B. (This budget is separate from the DoD’s, which is estimated by the Trump Administration to come in at $1T, or more than a 10% increase.)

This [$369.3B] includes $134B in discretionary funding and resources for health care, benefits and national cemeteries. Additionally, there is $235.3B in mandatory funding, an increase of $41.8 billion or 21.6 percent, above 2024 for benefit programs, inclusive of Compensation and Pensions, Readjustment Benefits, Housing and Insurance, and continued funding for the Toxic Exposures Fund.

The VA’s staffing and budgetary needs are constantly in flux and are based on growth in the veteran population, changes in health conditions, and medical technologies. Additional staff are crucial now, with up to 3 million veterans from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, plus new laws like the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act of 2022 and its 2024 expansion that provides a disability rating and special healthcare to veterans with exposure to toxins and hazards like burn pits or Agent Orange.

How is the VA impacted by all these benefits? The VA is required by the 2018 MISSION Act and a 2020 addition to “submit to Congress an annual report on the steps the Department is taking to achieve full staffing capacity, including the amount of additional funds necessary to enable the Department to reach full staffing capacity” (emphasis added).

To state what might be obvious, full staffing capacity is a priority for the VA as the number and needs of younger, eligible veterans—especially women—grows exponentially.

The VA’s 2024 report states that “Except for fiscal year (FY) 2021, VA has continued to see an upward trend in net gains in its overall onboard employees [full-time, half-time, and seasonal]. This trend is due, in part, to consistent increases in funding levels for FTEs [full-time employees], as well as VA’s increased emphasis on hiring, recruitment, and retention strategies.” An outcome of this fuller staffing is “record high trust levels (80.4% of Veterans trust VA; 91.8% of Veterans trust VA healthcare). More Veterans are choosing VA, more Veterans are filing claims at VA, and more Veterans are receiving healthcare at VA” (emphases added).

The report concludes “VA is grateful for Congress’ continued support.”

Yes, the dominant stories we Americans have heard for a long time are of veterans unemployed, without housing, taking their own lives—especially those under the age of 45—at a disproportional rate, and overly represented among those who are incarcerated. The lesser-told stories are of veterans as Private Military Contractors, veterans in dubious “humanitarian organizations” who have “an unclear obligation to adhere to international humanitarian law,” and what The War Horse describes as “claim sharks,” veterans who illegally prey on other veterans trying to get VA benefits.

Still, bipartisan Congressional support for veterans and their care has been consistent over the course of many decades. And this support is essential when the VA’s Inspector General reported in 2024 that 137 of 139 VA health centers nationwide report a severe staffing shortage in at least one area, particularly nursing and psychology.

So what?

Much of this support for and many of these benefits of being a veteran are at dire risk under the new Trump Administration…even when 6 out of 10 veterans voted for the Republican.

EMPLOYMENT

First, veterans are uniquely susceptible to the Trump hiring freeze and downsizing of the federal government because of their disproportional 30% representation among federal civilian employees. As reported by Task & Purpose, as of 2021, veterans made up 46% of DoD's 330K employees and 27% of those veteran employees were disabled. As of September, 2024, Pew Research reports that 25% of VA’s employees—or 122K—are veterans. Other federal agencies employing large numbers (i.e. more than 10K) of veterans include the departments of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Homeland Security, Justice, Transportation, Agriculture, and Interior. These veteran employees add up to around 600K veterans, a figure that does not include all veteran employees of the federal government.

Full disclosure: Some of my nine veteran family members are employed by the federal government.

Second, veterans’ employment in the federal government is protected by four federal laws. The first is the Veterans’ Preference Act of 1944, which gives veterans preference over non-veterans in hiring and retention during what are called “reductions in force.” The second is the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974, which “prohibits federal contractors and subcontractors from discriminating in employment against protected veterans [and their spouses] and requires employers take affirmative action to recruit, hire, promote, and retain these individuals” (emphasis added). The third is the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994, which prohibits public and private employers from discriminating against veterans and guarantees reemployment rights after active duty. The fourth is the Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998, which allows veterans to compete for certain positions that would otherwise be open only to current service employees.

All indications are that the Trump administration has violated processes for reduction in force if not violated the laws protecting veterans.

(Yes, President Clinton (1993-2001) reduced the size of the federal government by as many as 426K employees—which of course impacted veterans—but his administration did this over 7 years’ time, with overwhelming bipartisan support from Congress (as required), and only began after a 6-month review period.)

Third, veterans report being fired (and some reinstated, at least temporarily) from their civil service jobs, even those with disabilities incurred by active duty military service, and they are bitter and anxious about their treatment. Those interviewed in the military, federal, and civilian sources I found had worked all over the country in the VA, the Internal Revenue Service, the General Services Administration, the National Forest Service, the Department of Agriculture, the DoD’s Defense Missile Agency, and the DoD’s Defense Health Agency. They cite:

· widespread “layoff anxiety”;

· voting for Trump but now have “deep misgivings about his vote because of Trump’s slapdash cuts to the government” because “it’s very counterproductive, it’s very destructive” and “You have to be more surgical [with veterans]. … It’s almost like he’s trying to tear the VA down”;

· feeling “betrayed” as the firings “raised deeper questions about the Trump Administration’s commitment to those who served their country in uniform”;

· Increased rates of anxiety and stress…which intensifies the mental health needs of veterans for VA help as the help decreases;

· Feeling that they were fired for no reason at all, especially those who were in their jobs for years;

· It is “psychological warfare” on veterans. “It's scary for all the veterans out there,” not only about the firings but also the DOGE “centraliz[ing] access to that [VA] data” and fear “that DOGE and the Trump administration are explicitly going to misuse the data” (like building a totalitarian surveillance tool). “[W]e're all going to need some counseling.”

· “They just looked at who was the easiest to get rid of and they just kinda gave them the boot,” said Ben, who asked that his last name not be used. “It feels like getting stabbed in the back.” The “VFW also noted that ‘gainful employment’ is a social determinant of health and helps combat ‘one of the root causes of veteran suicide’.”

· Like they were “slapped in the face.”

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