Judson Brown: Kudos for veteran’s story

I would like to commend Gazette reporter Emilee Klein for her excellent article “Fired veteran suffers through address” [March 6] focused on testimony from Springfield Vet Center receptionist and veteran Michael Slater and on the broad funding and staffing cuts in the works for the VA.

Slater was an excellent source of information and insight for Klein. Adding quotes from the VA’s recently fired Inspector General Michael Missal, her article made evident that “efficiency” is the last thing that Musk’s mislabeled and questionably constitutional entity (DOGE) is really about. If efficiency were truly the goal, why eliminate the office gatekeeper (Slater) who can tell you exactly where to find the inefficiencies in his place of work and others like it across the system (i.e., in outdated payroll and procurement systems)?

Or, hugely more consequentially, if efficiency is the goal, why remove the VA’s seasoned inspector general Missal, whose whole job is to find and root out inefficiencies, fraud and waste in what he describes as a “really complicated and hard to manage organization” — a job he has succeeded at to the tune of $45 billion during his tenure.

What do the Musk’s techies at DOGE — who if they were bona fide government workers would under Musk’s scheme have already been fired as “probationary” employees — know about this very “complicated and hard to manage” organization? Nothing. And how can you begin to identify “efficiency” if you don’t have some feel and sense for the “works.” Ask any appliance repairman.

Judson Brown

Northampton