Veterans are speaking out on the Trump administration's plans to cut the
VA's budget
[March 06, 2025]
By BEN FINLEY and STEPHEN GROVES
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Stephen Watson served in the Marines for 22 years
and receives care through the Department of Veterans Affairs for a
traumatic brain injury. He supports President Donald Trump and adviser
Elon Musk's cost-cutting program — even if it affects the VA.
“We're no better because we're veterans,” said Watson, 68, of Jesup,
Georgia. “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.”
Gregg Bafundo served during the first Gulf War and has nerve damage to
his feet from carrying loads of weight as a Marine mortarman. He says he
may need to turn to the VA for care after being fired as a wilderness
ranger and firefighter through the layoffs at the U.S. Forest Service.
“They’re going to put guys like me and my fellow Marines that rely on
the VA in the ground,” said Bafundo, 53, who lives in Tonasket,
Washington.
The Trump administration's move to end hundreds of VA contracts —
initially paused after public outcry — and ongoing layoffs are affecting
the nation's veterans, a critical and politically influential
constituency. More than 9 million veterans get physical and mental
health care from the VA, which is now being examined by Musk's
Department of Government Efficiency.
The VA manages a $350 billion-plus budget and oversees nearly 200
medical centers and hospitals. Veterans have shown up at town hall-style
meetings with Republican lawmakers to voice their anger, and groups like
the Veterans of Foreign Wars are mobilizing against cuts.
The department is considering a reorganization that could include
cutting 80,000 jobs, according to an internal memo obtained by the
Associated Press on Wednesday.
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 6 in 10 voters who are veterans
backed Trump, while about 4 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 said last week that it wants to slash $2 billion worth
of VA contracts, which would affect anything from cancer care to the
ability to assess toxic exposure. The department quickly paused the cuts
following concerns about the impact on critical health services.
VA Secretary Doug Collins told Fox News Channel this week that the
effort was focused on “finding deficiencies.”
“Anything that we're doing is designed and will not cut veterans' health
or veterans' benefits that they've earned,” he said.
In a Tuesday statement to The Associated Press, VA press secretary Peter
Kasperowicz said the agency “is putting Veterans at the center of
everything the department does.”
“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.
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Former Army and Navy Vietnam veteran Richard Lamb, poses for a photo
at the EAA Museum at McGregor Executive Airport in McGregor, Texas,
Sunday, March 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
 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 VA
doctor acknowledged he had compression fractures. Lamb later had a
private doctor perform surgery on his back after he said the VA
wouldn't perform the procedure.
“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
couldn’t 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.”
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.”
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