GRANBY — Veteran Michael Slater left the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday night feeling like he witnessed the taping of an episode of “The Jerry Springer Show” — a long-running tabloid talk show known for its sensationalistic topics — rather than a presidential address.

“Politics is a unique beast, but it really felt like putting on a show on both sides and that’s the part I can’t stand for,” said Slater, a Granby resident who was invited to attend President Donald Trump’s address to Congress by U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Springfield. “It’s an amazing opportunity to be inside of that space in the Capitol building, which I probably never would have seen, but it’s not an event I should’ve spent three hours of my life attending.”

Politics isn’t among Slater’s interests; he’s never watched a presidential address before Tuesday. He is, however, very passionate about his veteran community.

The 42-year-old left his higher-paid position as South Hadley’s veterans’ service officer seven months ago to work as program support assistant at the Springfield Vet Center. It was a full-circle moment for Slater, who relied on the support of the Vet Center himself after completing four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as an Army combat engineer, a position responsible for inspecting and clearing routes of explosive devices.

That job came to an abrupt end when Slater opened a form-letter email on Feb. 13 informing him of his immediate termination for poor performance. His previous performance evaluations were all good, he said.

“Like many VA employees, Mike has dedicated his career to serving our nation — first in the military and most recently with the VA,” Neal said in a statement. “The suggestion from the administration that nobody from the VA who interacts with veterans has been let go is simply not true, and Mike is a testament to that fact.”

To call attention to the 2,400 probationary employees who were fired from the VA last month, Neal invited Slater to be his special guest. While Slater left Capitol Hill disappointed by the conduct and lack of action from the country’s elected officials, he managed to elevate awareness for VA employees who either lost their job or fear losing their job.

“The way things are going right now, eventually a system that’s already understaffed and strained will get to the point where it can no longer perform,” Slater said. “My brothers and sisters in service need to be taken care of, and it’s America’s pledge to them that they will do that. Right not, what’s happening isn’t honoring that pledge.”

VA service centers operated by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs offer counseling and support services to transition postwar veterans back into society. There are over 300 such centers across the country, each of which has one of Slater’s former positions.

As a program support assistant, Slater ran the front of house of the Vet Center, answering calls and completing administrative paperwork while other employees provided mental and social support to veterans. Roughly a fifth of these positions, or 60 people, were fired last month, leaving no person to greet visitors in those centers, Slater said.

“Every day a vet in crisis goes to the door of a vet center to seek help and when there’s a barrier to seek access to care is a day that we’re gambling with a veteran’s life,” Slater said.

Currently, a sign on the Springfield Vet Center door informs visiting veterans that no one can greet them due to “abrupt and unplanned staff shortages,” and to call to schedule an appointment.

“Not only did I lose my job, but now I’m watching the system that I depend on, that my brothers and sisters in arms depend on, become less efficient,” he said.

Slater said he’s quick to acknowledge the Vet Center is far from perfect. Many of the administrative systems he used to order supplies and conduct payroll are dated and inefficient, often inflating the prices of items and delivery. A more fiscally and socially effective Vet Center would improve these systems and proactively evaluate and service the needs of future generations.

“We need to make the systems more fluid because the needs of different eras of veterans change depending on what occurs during their time of service,” Slater said.

But the Trump administration’s current strategy to cut with little rationale, he said, will gut the system rather than improve it.

“You’re asking Americans to give up everything when you serve. All these freedoms you ensure Americans have access to, you don’t have those when you serve,” he said. “My stance is that we must take care of the veterans and service members of America, because they are the wall defending all that America stands for.”

80,000 VA jobson chopping block

Meanwhile, the Associated Press, citing an internal memo, repoted Wednesday that the Department of Veterans Affairs is planning a reorganization that includes cutting over 80,000 jobs from the agency.

The VA’s chief of staff, Christopher Syrek, told top-level officials at the agency Tuesday that it had an objective to cut enough employees to return to 2019 staffing levels of just under 400,000. That would require terminating tens of thousands of employees after the VA expanded during the Biden administration, as well as to cover veterans impacted by burn pits under the 2022 PACT Act.

The memo instructs top-level staff to prepare for an agency-wide reorganization in August to “resize and tailor the workforce to the mission and revised structure.” It also calls for agency officials to work with the White House’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency to “move out aggressively, while taking a pragmatic and disciplined approach” to the Trump administration’s goals. Government Executive first reported on the internal memo.

Veterans have already been speaking out against the cuts at the VA that so far had included a few thousand employees and hundreds of contracts. More than 25% of the VA’s workforce is made up of of veterans.

The plans underway at the VA showed how the Trump administration’s DOGE initiative, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is not holding back on an all-out effort to slash federal agencies, even for those that have traditionally enjoyed bipartisan support.

Michael Missal, who was the VA’s inspector general for nine years until he was fired last month as part of Trump’s sweeping dismissal of independent oversight officials at government agencies, told the AP that the VA is already suffering from a lack of “expertise” as top-level officials either leave or are shuffled around under the president’s plans.

“What’s going to happen is VA’s not going to perform as well for veterans, and veterans are going to get harmed,” said Missal, who was a guest of Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., at Trump’s Tuesday address to Congress.

Rather than leaning on the missions of inspectors general, whose job is to search out waste and fraud at government agencies, Trump has moved forcefully against them, flouting statutes that require a 30-day notice and specific reasons for their dismissals. Missal is challenging his dismissal in court alongside seven other fired inspectors general.

Missal described the VA as “a really complicated, hard-to-manage organization” that is similar in size to the largest corporations in America. He defended his work at the agency as committed to make it more efficient and responsive to veterans. By Missal’s count, the VA inspector general’s oversight resulted in $45 billion being saved at the agency during his tenure.

In Congress, Democrats have decried the cuts at the VA and other agencies, while Republicans have so far watched with caution the Trump administration’s changes.

Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com.