US military veterans hit by Trump's federal workforce purge

DUNLOP Hendrick Simoes served in the US Navy for 24 years, retiring last year and starting a new job as a civilian employee of the federal government. James LaCoursiere, national commander of the American Legion veterans' association, expressed concern that "if these cuts go through, tens of thousands of veterans may be unemployed." "Not only do these job cuts threaten critical services provided to veterans but it takes away the opportunity for a veteran to continue to serve his or her brothers and sisters," LaCoursiere said. "With all these federal workers being fired, and with a big majority of them being veterans, and with veteran care being cut back, I'm really scared that we're going to go back to the days where veteran homelessness is going to be high," he said. "I'm scared that we're going to go back to the days where veterans are committing suicide in VA parking lots," Simoes said, adding: "I feel like we had come a long way towards combating that as a society, and now all of that is at risk.