Veterans are expressed in terms of Trump administration to reduce the budget of the VA

By Ben Finley and Stephen Groves

Norfolk, go. (AP) – Stephen Watson served in the Marines for 22 years and receives care through the Veterans Department for a traumatic cerebral lesion. He supports the president of President Donald Trump and the cost reduction program of the Elon Musk advisor – even if it affects VA.

“We are not better because we are veterans,” said Watson, 68, from Jesup, Georgia. “We must all take a step back and realize that everyone will have to take a little chin to master these budgetary issues.”

Gregg Bafundo served during the First Gulf War and has nerve lesions at his feet by carrying weight loads as a sea mortar. He says he may have to turn to the VA for care after being dismissed as a forest ranger and firefighter by the dismissals of the US Forest Service.

“They are going to put guys like me and my marine companions who depend on the VA in the ground,” said Bafundo, 53, who lives in Tonasket, Washington.

The Trump administration’s decision to end hundreds of contracts will – initially interrupted after the public outcry – and the in progress dismissals affect the nation veterans, a critical and politically influential constituency. More than 9 million veterans receive physical health and mental health care, which is now examined by the Musk government’s effectiveness department.

The VA manages a budget of $ 350 billion and supervises nearly 200 medical and hospitals. The veterans presented themselves at Town style meetings with republican legislators to express their anger, and groups like veterans of foreign wars are mobilizing against the cuts.

The ministry is considering a reorganization which could include the reduction of 80,000 jobs, according to an internal note obtained by the Associated Press on Wednesday.

Veterans were much more likely to support Trump, a Republican, that vice-president Kamala Harris, a democrat, in the November presidential election, according to Votacast, an investigation by the US electorate conducted in the 50 states. Nearly 6 out of 10 voters who are veterans supported Trump, while around 4 out of 10 voted for Harris.

Joy Ilem, national legislative director of the non -partisan disabled group of American veterans, said that her group was studying how current cuts could affect care.

“You could lose the confidence of the population of veterans on some of these things that have happened and the way they happened,” said Ilem. “And we fear damage to recruitment and retention of the hiring of the best and most brilliant to serve veterans.”

The White House said last week that it wanted to write $ 2 billion in contracts, which would affect everything, care against cancer to the ability to assess toxic exposure. The ministry quickly interrupted 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 gaps”.

“All we do is designed and will not reduce the benefits of the health of veterans or veterans they have won,” he said.

In a Tuesday declaration to the Associated Press, the press secretary of the VA, Peter Kasperowicz, said that the agency “puts veterans at the center of everything that the department does”.

“Each dollar that we spend for unnecessary contracts, non -critical activities or duplication is a dollar less that we can spend on veterans, and taking into account this choice, we will always sit with the veteran,” wrote Kasperowicz.

The Republicans stressed that the VA re -felled employees who were released during a first cycle of layoffs in February, as those working for a hotline of crisis. However, during a series of subsequent layoffs, the VA has reduced 15 other employees who occupied jobs supporting the line of crisis, including a trainer for the answers of the phone, according to congress staff who follow the cuts.

The VA has long faced calls for reform

The VA is prey to years by allegations of poor medical care and excessively long waiting times. Investigators a decade ago discovered generalized problems in the way hospitals were planning meetings after allegations that up to 40 veterans died while waiting for care at Phoenix hospital in the department. A group of employees accused the ministry of retaliation against potential denunciators. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, has finally set up a program allowing veterans to get out of the system will consult medical care. The choice program was extended by Trump during his first mandate.

Richard Lamb, who has been shot dead twice in Vietnam as head of the army helicopter team, said the ministry should be “cut to the bone”.

Lamb, 74, said he had broken the vertebrae whenever his helicopter had been shot. Decades have passed, he said, before a doctor of Va recognizes that he had compression fractures. LAMB later has a private doctor to perform surgery on the back after having said that the GA would not carry out the procedure.

“I would be happy to see, not demolished, but cleaned, cleaned and rejecting,” said Lamb, who lives in Waco, Texas. “VA is supposed to be a wonderful thing for veterans. This is not the case. It sucks. “”

Daniel Ragsdale Combs, a navy veteran suffering from brain trauma, does not agree.

Ragsdale Combs, 45, underwent his injury running to respond to an order on an aircraft carrier and hitting her head over a hatch. He receives group therapy for mental illness caused by injury, but said he had heard that these sessions could be canceled or reduced due to staff shortages.

“I am deeply worried because the VA has been only great for me,” said Ragsdale Combs, who lives in Mesa, Arizona. “I am angry, upset and frustrated.”

Lucy Wong relies on a team of doctors goes to the Phoenix region to treat her scleroderma, an autoimmune condition that attacks the connective tissue. She said that she had developed the disease as a medical technician in the navy in the 1980s, working with toxic chemicals and hardening extreme stress.

Driving is difficult. She fears that going to cut the Uber walks to her medical appointments, among others.

“I ask if Trump cuts something here, and the answer is” not yet “,” said Wong.

Josh Ghering, a former Parson navy, Kansas, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said that he should go to San Antonio for an appointment with a neurologist before being medically removed for back problems, including hernie records. He asked why he couldn’t get the same meeting closer to his home.

“I think they are heading in the right direction,” said Ghering, 42, about Doge. “But they will have to be more deepened with what they do, to make sure they don’t cut necessary jobs.”

Should service members accept the CUTS Va?

The members of the nation service have never been a political monolith – and the same goes for their opinions on the VA. But the split between two navies on the opposite sides of the country raises a question not only about Doge, but on the American soldiers: who should sacrifice themselves?

Watson, the former sailor in Georgia, underwent various injuries during his duties, including a traumatic brain lesion when a cable broke and a box fell on him. He said he was ready to accept fewer visits to his doctor goes and give up other amenities in service in the country.

“Many veterans who voted for Trump understood that it would be his policy and who is now shouting bloody murder because the ax will fall on the VA,” said Watson. “And for me, it’s just a little self -centered.”

Bafundo, the navy of the state of Washington, rejected the idea that all the Americans make a sacrifice when, as he sees, he really rests “on the little guy”.

American billionaires will not have assumed the burden, he argued, while Musk, who is the richest person in the world, and others pay little or no taxes.

“If we are going to sacrifice, the rich person needs to sacrifice too,” he said. “And, frankly, they don’t.”

This story has been corrected to show that decades have passed before a doctor is recognizing the compression fractures of LAMB. A previous version of this story wrongly indicated that a private doctor had discovered the injury.

Groves reported in Washington.

Originally published: March 5, 2025 at 11 a.m. PST