Illinois veterans, VA employees rally to protest expected Trump
administration cuts
[April 29, 2025]
By Sonya Dymova
McHENRY — John Gerend, a Vietnam War veteran from Lake Villa, Illinois,
was exposed to Agent Orange while on duty. Suffering from diseases
associated with exposure to the toxic chemical, he said he still
considers himself fortunate.
“I’ve had some issues with it — diabetes, some heart issues and so on —
but there are many more that have suffered a lot more than I have and
need the care a lot more than I do,” said Gerend, 77. “It’s very
upsetting to think that the people who have served their country and
have lost limbs or mental health might now lose the benefits, all the
support, both for mental health and physical health, and the doctors and
medications available.”
“I am mad about what’s going on. I’m angry,” he added.
A retired U.S. Army first lieutenant, Gerend was among the 200 people
who gathered outside the McHenry Veterans Affairs clinic Sunday to
protest the Trump administration’s plans to slash the agency’s
workforce, sparking fears among veterans over the prospect of worsening
care and growing unemployment.
Across Illinois, protests have been gaining strength since the proposed
cuts were revealed. They range from veterans protesting last month at
the Capitol in Springfield to demonstrations by nurses and staff at the
Jesse Brown VA Medical Center in Chicago, who are concerned about the
dangers to proper care and risk for veterans.
In an internal memo to senior agency leaders on March 4, VA chief of
staff Christopher Syrek said the agency’s initial goal was “to return to
our 2019-end strength numbers of 399,957 employees.” VA Secretary Doug
Collins later confirmed the department’s target is to fire roughly
80,000 employees later this year, but he insisted the agency would
strive for more efficiency while not cutting benefits and care to the 9
million veterans it serves. According to the Pew Research Center, a
quarter of the workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs are
themselves veterans.
The move comes after the VA expanded during the Biden administration,
fueled by the passing of legislation like the 2022 Promise to Address
Comprehensive Toxics, PACT, Act, expanding medical benefits for veterans
who were exposed to toxins from burn pits of trash on military bases.
“I’m getting later in my years, so it’s gonna affect some younger folks
possibly more than me, so I’m more afraid for them than I am for
myself,” said Gerend, who has used VA services for 12 years.
VA workers in distress
The VA attempted to lay off at least 2,400 probationary employees in
February. According to the department, those in “mission-critical”
positions — including Veterans Crisis Line responders — were not
affected. Yet, several crisis line staffers received a notice, according
to union leaders.
Some of the department’s Illinois workers were axed, too, and U.S. Sen.
Tammy Duckworth said the ensuing “chaos” had left the VA less efficient
with longer wait times and more backlogs in service.
“I was almost finished with my two-year-long probationary period when I
received an email saying I was terminated because of my performance
effective that day, (Feb. 24),” said one Illinois-based VA employee, who
spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “I had
outstanding performance reviews, but the fact that they labeled it as a
performance-based solution meant that I couldn’t get unemployment
(benefits).”
The employee was rehired in March after a federal judge ordered the
Trump administration to reinstate the fired probationary employees at
several departments, including the VA.
In April, however, the Supreme Court halted the federal judge’s ruling,
allowing the federal government to keep thousands of probationary
federal employees it attempted to fire off the payroll while lower
courts weigh whether the downsizing efforts are legal.
“Everybody is nervous and on edge,” the employee said. “Their jobs are
not secure. Nobody’s jobs are secure.”
With the threat of more cuts looming, some Illinois facilities have
already started laying people off, causing health care workers more
distress.
Heather Fallon, a VA nurse in the Chicago area, said one of her
colleagues returned to the facility as a patient after learning that
their job “was being eliminated.”
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Protestors gather outside the McHenry Veterans Affairs clinic Sunday
to protest anticipated Trump administration cuts to the VA. (Medill
Illinois News Bureau photo by Sonya Dymova)
“The person had a conversation with family over dinner about how they
are going to pay for their daughter’s college,” she recalled. “The
patient ended up developing some pain related to the stress, coming to
the emergency department and being admitted because of the health
problems that were precipitated by the stress that that person was
under.”
“That really affected our staff quite a lot,” Fallon added.
Some fear that the upcoming mass layoffs, especially in smaller towns
across rural Illinois, are going to negatively impact populations at
large.
“Danville is a small town. It consists of about 29,000 people, and if we
lose 400 good-paying government jobs, that will devastate our economy
here,” said Mickensy Ellis-White, a veteran of the Iraq War from
Vermilion County and former chair of the Vermilion County Democratic
Party. “Where are those people going to go to get new jobs? That’s going
to negatively affect all of us.”
The level of care diminishes
Even before the cuts were announced by the Trump administration, it had
been difficult for health facilities within the VA system to maintain
enough staff and resources, like beds, available. According to the 2024
VA Office of Inspector General report, 86% of all Veteran Health
Administration medical facilities reported severe staffing shortages of
medical officers, whereas 82% reported severe shortages of nurses.
The mass slashes to the department’s workforce will only worsen the
preexisting lack of personnel, according to Fallon, who said she knows
of several nurses who have already submitted job applications to other
places in the private sector as the threat of the layoffs looms. “A
friend of mine at the St. Louis VA had her care appointment canceled
because they didn’t have a provider, and that’s a direct result of the
cuts,” said Jessica Motsinger, a disabled U.S. Navy veteran living 12
miles east of St Louis in the Metro East. “It really is devastating, and
if it hasn’t really affected somebody, it will very shortly.”
This is not an isolated incident.
“We had a patient yesterday who needed services that we didn’t have open
beds at our facility. The solution was that they were going to send him
to a different facility, more than an hour away, and he was very upset
about that,” Fallon said. “He wasn’t able to go home to get his
belongings, and he didn’t feel like his belongings were safe where they
were, and his family wouldn’t be able to visit him there, so he would be
very isolated.”
According to the official data, 247,140 Illinoisians were enrolled in
the VA health care system in fiscal year 2023, and the state’s veteran
medical facilities provided services to 162,366 unique patients.
Although the impacts of the layoffs are likely to extend throughout the
state, the cuts would hit northeastern Illinois the hardest, the
counties with the highest percentage of veteran population.
Many veterans are fearful of what is to come — but also angry.
“They think that, since we use the word ‘disabled,’ somehow we’re
receiving benefits that we’re not entitled to,” Motsinger said. “But
people don’t get this just because we somehow scammed somebody or paid
something, we’ve totally earned this. We raised our hand; we offered to
sacrifice our lives.”
“I’m sorry America decided to have war for over 20 years. Now you have
veterans, an entire generation that you owe us to care for us, not
asking for anything other than what we’ve earned,” she said.
Sonya Dymova is an undergraduate student in
journalism with Northwestern University’s Medill School of
Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, and a fellow
in its Medill Illinois News Bureau working in partnership with
Capitol News Illinois.
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state
government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is
funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R.
McCormick Foundation. |
