'DOGE in practice': Outrage follows 'boilerplate' MAGA firing of disabled veteran

18 February

The Trump Administration, with the help of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is targeting a long list of federal government agencies for mass layoffs. According to the Washington Post, as many as 200,000 federal workers may lose their jobs.

In an article posted on February 17, Post reporters Hannah Natanson, Lisa Rein and Emily Davies detailed specific examples of government workers who have been laid off. One of them was Luke Graziani, a disabled U.S. Army veteran who worked in a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in the Bronx.

The Trump Administration and DOGE are targeting probationary workers, and according to the Post, Graziani was five weeks away from finishing his probationary year when, on Friday, February 14, he received a "boilerplate termination e-mail citing performance concerns."

Graziani discussed the termination with his boss, who strongly disagreed with the layoff and told the veteran, "You're critical staff."

In a letter to Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, Graziani asked for his job back and wrote, "You see, I am a veteran too. Just like you, Sec. Collins, I spent those same hot nights in Iraq, waiting for the all-clear after an incoming round set off the alert system, praying that there wouldn't be another….. This can’t be how my service to my country ends.”

On X, formerly Twitter, Mother Jones' Noah Lanard highlighted Graziani's siuation.

Lanard tweeted, "DOGE in practice: Disabled Army veteran who has 4 kids and did 3 tours overseas is fired from his job at Bronx VA hospital."

Lanard, in a subsequent tweet, posted, "Wrote three tours overseas in initial post. Should be four. Two in Iraq and two in Afghanistan."

X user James Knowles, seeing Lanard's tweets, wrote, "Trump and Elon want the large numbers of elderly, sick, and veterans to expire so that the Nation does not have to pay for their upkeep. Since Trump does not need to win reelection and since Elon can pay for a mid-term win, voter preferences are largely irrelevant at this unique point."

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