Veterans Rally Against Trump Cuts

Peter Pocock: We’re here because certain parties who are in the government are really trying to cut the hell out of what we have totally earned by our service over the years.

I’m 90% disabled, according to the VA, and it’s because I’ve got Parkinson’s disease, and it’s generally attributed to the fact that I was exposed to Agent Orange during my service.

The VA takes care of people like me. That’s not waste, that’s not fraud, that’s not abuse, that’s what they have earned, is that care. That’s what everybody in this whole country earns just by being citizens, is care. How come we are not taking care of our people?

Everett Kelley: I’m a proud Army veteran, and I have the pleasure of being the National President of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE).

Veterans are tired of being celebrated on Veterans Day, remembered on Memorial Day and forgotten about after Election Day. We’re tired of being thanked for our service in public and stabbed in our back in private. 

In February, the VA recklessly terminated more than 1,500 probationary employees, which resulted in chaos and confusion within the department. In March, the VA announced plans to cut 83,000 jobs for no rhyme or reason whatsoever.

I say it’s not efficiency, it’s fraud, and AFGE has been fighting, because we know what the billionaires will do. And if you don’t know what the big plan for America’s veterans is, let me share it with you. The big plan for America’s veterans is a privatized veteran health care in order to make themselves wealthier, they want to make a quick buck off of the sacrifices, off of the pain and the scars of all those of us who have served this country.

Terri Henry: I’m here in Washington, D.C., today to protest the Trump administration’s treatment of veterans.

I am a Veteran. I’m married to a Vietnam veteran. My father is a veteran. My brother is a veteran. I believe in veterans. My husband and I had nowhere to go after high school graduation. We weren’t born with a silver spoon like Donald Trump, so we joined the military, and his two brothers joined as well, and we got our educations through the VA.

But now in the Trump administration, that care is threatened. These veterans are threatened. We’ve got new veterans, young veterans, Afghanistan veterans, Iraq veterans, Vietnam veterans, still alive. We need that care. You promised that care.

Donald Trump is a draft dodger. In 1968, he refused to take the call. In fact, he got his father to pay for a bone spurs excuse. That’s not courage. That man is insisting that we, the veterans, or the active duty military, march in front of him like puppets. He is a draft dodger and a felon. It is such an insult to the American military to make them parade for him.

Ellen Barfield: I’m the co-founder of the Baltimore chapter of Veterans for Peace, and I’m back on the national board.

I have said for a long time that VA healthcare, if fully funded and staffed, is the way everybody’s healthcare should be, single payer, everybody in, nobody out. Sadly, the VA has never been everybody in. They don’t cover everybody, and they really should.

But it is a single system where your records are all together, your care is all in one place. They understand the specifics of you being a veteran. And there are lots of other categories of people that need particular attention paid. Everybody should have single payer. Get rid of the 30% insurance premium that the civilian world pays for their health care.

So yeah, the nation’s not being kind to veterans, but it’s not being kind to anybody that isn’t filthy rich.

Lindsay Church: I’m a Navy veteran, the executive director of Minority Veterans of America, and someone who still holds tightly to a belief that this nation is worth fighting for, not with weapons or wars, but with truth, with compassion and with conviction that we all deserve to belong.

Today marks the beginning of what history will remember as a purge of transgender service members, an unconscionable order from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, that puts thousands of service members across the country and around the world in the crosshairs of their own government. Troops who serve with integrity and distinction are being told that their presence is a problem, that their identities are incompatible with patriotism, that they must choose to walk away from the careers that they’ve built, or stay to be persecuted.

This is not about cost saving. This is about consolidation of power, of control, of the very definition of who gets to be counted as an American.

Lelaina Brandt: Well, I am a transgender person, and I also was in the military during ​“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” last time, so I was completely closeted for my own safety, not just in the military, but in my life in general. And it took me a very long time to have the courage to do what some of the service members now are doing, which is being themselves while being in the military.

Each and every one of us have taken an oath to the Constitution, just like every other service member and veteran, and I feel that them being stripped away from the military right now, not only losing their their livelihoods, but also their homes, their friends, like they’re just being stripped from their lives completely just because of how they were born. And I think it is appalling and insulting to all of us.

Irma Westmoreland: I’m a registered nurse in Augusta, Georgia, for the VA. I’m also secretary-treasurer for National Nurses United and Chair of our VA division.

Maybe some of you know someone or love someone ill from burn pit smoke or from Agent Orange, or lost a limb from an IED explosion, or died or suffered from PTSD, military sexual trauma or other chronic illnesses. We know the VA is the best place to get care for these ailments and more.

But it’s more than that. It’s also the only health care system in the country that’s fully integrated, will help with veterans in poverty, with homelessness, offers clothing allowances and much, much more.

Now, if you ask, is the VA perfect? No, it’s not. I can’t tell you that it is. But let me tell you, we’re light years better than the private sector.

The ultimate goal is to privatize the VA and pour billions of taxpayer dollars into giant healthcare corporations and the pockets of billionaires instead of veterans who served our country.

Andrea Johnson: I’m a registered nurse. I work with veterans in San Diego.

Justin Wooden: I am a registered nurse in the ICU, and I work in Tampa, Florida.

Andrea Johnson: We care for patients that are not typical patients, right? Veterans went overseas, they fought wars, they’ve done many things that affect them morally and mentally, and because of those actions and the things that they had to choose to do in wars, they come back broken.

We’re taking care of that whole veteran. We’re taking care of their medications. We’re taking care of their home life. We’re coordinating with social workers to make sure that they have all the resources that they need.

Justin Wooden: Working in the private sector before coming to the VA, I’ve seen both sides. Everything is about billing in the private sector. It’s about getting money.

At the VA, we care about the veteran as a whole. Is there anything they need at home? Do they need shower bars? So we’re working on the discharge to make sure when they do leave, when it’s time for them to go, they have the appropriate things. Do they have problems with any meals? We’re gonna get every resource, mental health, we schedule their appointments before they leave.

Cecil E. Roberts: My name is not just Cecil Roberts, President of United Mine Workers of America. I used to be Sergeant Cecil E. Roberts in Vietnam in the 196 Light Infantry Brigade.

How many of you met a millionaire in Vietnam, or where you were stationed? There’s a good reason millionaires don’t defend the country. They take advantage of the country.

Abraham Lincoln said that this is a country of the people, by the people and for the people. It has turned into a country for the rich people who don’t care about the rest of us.

We should demand that every person who worked for the federal government and lost their union rights be restored right now. I’m calling on Congress. I’m calling on everybody that’s elected. I’m calling on every American. How are you going to act? Because this is terrible, what’s happening to this country, and that’s why we’re here today.

This episode of the Working People Podcast was published on June 13.