The email came at 7:30 at night on a Friday, an awkward time for an awkward message.
"Please see important attachment regarding your employment status with the Small Business Administration," it read.
That attachment detailed my termination with a two-week notice, explaining that, as a probationary employee, I had "failed to demonstrate fitness for continued federal employment."
I had served in the Air Force as an intelligence analyst, separating in 2010, and had signed up in the summer of 2024 to continue my public service with the U.S. Small Business Administration, America's only agency dedicated to supporting and uplifting the backbone of this country, small businesses. I was passionate about the work, and my supervisor had just given me a very positive performance review.
By Monday, that termination notice was rescinded, or so it seemed. The following day, I received the same termination email, this time terminating me immediately, with no notice and no severance. The next morning, I turned in my laptop and cleaned out my office, passing the same American flag I had stood in front of while being sworn into my now former position.
By the end of February, thousands of probationary employees (in their first year or two of service) had been fired across the federal workforce, each with a similar (if not identical) explanation -- poor performance. The truth? It was a sweeping, indiscriminate purge that disregarded actual job performance, efficiency or impact.
But why should you care? Why should we care?
Nearly one-third of the two-million-person federal workforce served in the military. If you're doing the math with me, that's over half a million veterans. Veterans get priority in hiring but are receiving zero protection from being fired. That's not just bad policy, it's bad faith. A community of people with special expertise in teamwork and effectiveness is a valuable asset to the government, and they should be relied upon to drive the best path forward.
Unsurprisingly, the Department of Veterans Affairs is a strong employer of veterans, more than 120,000 of them. In fact, nearly one-quarter of the VA's new hires last year were veterans, making them easy targets as probationary employees. Veterans bring unmatched experience to the VA -- as both employees and patients. These reckless cuts hit veterans twice -- first as employees, then as those relying on federal services. Not only can they find themselves unexpectedly and undeservedly laid off, but the very department designed to help them in their times of need will now be understaffed and possibly unavailable.
At the Defense Department, where thousands of layoffs have already been announced, nearly half of civilian workers are veterans.
From a business perspective, my other expertise as a prior small business owner, this is downright ironic. These indiscriminate firings, masked as an attempt to make the government more efficient, will lead to less productivity and a decrease in service availability to taxpaying Americans. In business, the bottom line is a critical measurement of health. In government, the safety and well-being of its citizens are the priority. Yet, the people who help keep us safe are being discarded in favor of a bottom line.
But there's still time. Each of us has a voice, whether written or verbally, and a representative who needs to hear it. This isn't a case of big government versus small government, red or blue. This is a case of good government, and every American deserves it, especially veterans. Call your congressperson, write your senator, and voice your concern. Call today. Demand an investigation. Ask them: "What's the plan to protect veterans?" Insist on answers.
We cannot sacrifice our nation's heroes in favor of a bottom line. If not, I can only pray for my fellow patriots when they receive that awkward email on a Friday night.
-- Chris Wicker is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, former small business owner, and workforce advocate. Most recently, he served as deputy district director for the U.S. Small Business Administration before being fired in a wave of federal workforce reductions.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s nominee for the top policy job at the Pentagon acknowledged during his confirmation hearing on Tuesday that Russia invaded Ukraine and poses a significant military threat to the U.S. and Europe, but only after persistent questioning from senators on both sides of the political aisle.
Elbridge Colby on multiple occasions declined to answer directly whether Russia invaded Ukraine, saying it’s a sensitive topic and he doesn’t want to say anything that might hurt chances of peace.
But, in only one instance — when Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, pressed him, demanding, “In February 2022, did Russian forces cross the border and invade Ukraine? Yes or no? — he told the Senate Armed Services Committee that she was “describing a factual reality” that is “demonstrably true.”
Against that backdrop, Colby also would not answer whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is a war criminal or had committed war crimes. The International Criminal Court in 2023 issued an arrest warrant[5] for Putin for war crimes, accusing him of being personally responsible for the abductions of children from Ukraine.
And when asked about Trump's decision Monday to pause military aid [6]to Kyiv, Colby said the president has a plan to end the war and ensure a secure and sovereign Ukraine.
Colby, who served as deputy assistant defense secretary for strategy during the first Trump administration, also faced repeated questions from both Democratic and Republican senators on previous statements he made suggesting the U.S. could tolerate and contain a nuclear-armed Iran.
More recently his comments on the issue have evolved. And on Tuesday, in response to questions from Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and other GOP senators, he said a nuclear armed Iran “would pose an existential threat” to the U.S. and “we should deny Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
He downplayed his previous comments over the years on Iran, saying, “was my wording always appropriate? Was my precise framing always perfect? No."
Vice President JD Vance made a quick stop at the committee hearing to urge Colby's confirmation, saying the nominee has said things in the past that alienated Republicans and Democrats, and also said things that both sides would agree on. He said the nominee will be able to work with lawmakers, and added that Colby will work to restore the defense industrial base, a key goal.
In other comments during the hearing, Colby said the U.S. “should maintain the highest level of cyber vigilance and capability vis-a-vis Russia.” Asked if the U.S. should not use offensive cyberoperations against Russia, Colby said that generally any moves by Moscow should “be reciprocated.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth[7] has paused offensive cyberoperations against Russia by U.S. Cyber Command, according to U.S. officials., who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations. That decision does not affect cyberoperations conducted by other agencies, including the CIA.
Colby has also made comments in the past about pulling back from commitments in the Middle East in order to focus more on China. Asked on Tuesday about threats from an array of adversaries, including China, Iran and North Korea, he said the U.S. doesn’t have a “multi-war military.”
He said the U.S. should not abandon the Middle East, there should not be a nuclear-armed Iran, Russia must not “run roughshod” over Europe and North Korea shouldn't take over South Korea.
But he said he also believes the U.S. “could be at the precipice of a major war with China” and added that the U.S. can’t deal with all of those issues at the same time. The country, he said, needs a credible plan, more resources and additional help from allies.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is pressing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for answers on the Army[1]'s handling of meal funds as questions mount over the apparent misallocation of tens of millions of dollars intended to feed soldiers.
The scrutiny follows a Military.com investigation[2] revealing that the Army cannot account for more than $151 million deducted from troops' paychecks -- funds meant to cover meals. On Tuesday, 21 lawmakers penned a letter to Hegseth on the matter and about concerns over access to nutritious food.
At the heart of the issue is the Army's Basic Allowance for Subsistence, or BAS, a roughly $460 monthly stipend for soldiers meant to offset food costs. For many junior enlisted troops living in barracks, much of that allowance is automatically deducted to fund dining facilities. Lawmakers, however, are questioning whether those deductions are being used effectively and appropriately.
"Our service members are the best among us and expect fair compensation from their government," Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., who is leading the oversight effort, said in a statement. "If a service member is losing money from their paycheck because they are being given a meal, it is reasonable for them to expect that funding will be used only to cover the costs of providing it and to ensure it is of the highest possible quality."
Financial data from 11 of the Army's largest bases, reviewed by Military.com, revealed that only about 40% on average of the funds collected from soldiers for food was actually spent on meals, though at some bases the gap was more significant.
Officials have declined to provide figures for nearly 100 other Army garrisons, likely violating the service's own transparency rules, meaning the issue may be much more significant. Data reviewed by Military.com accounts only for 2024, yet the issue has been going on for years and across several administrations.
The publication also found numerous instances of dining facilities abruptly closing or changing hours, making it difficult for troops to access food. The Army has increasingly relied on grab-and-go kiosks[4], a shift away from college campus-style dining facilities. But these kiosks primarily offer snacks and prepackaged meals, many of which fall short of the Army's own nutrition standards.
Lawmakers also want Hegseth to explain how the Army is providing nutritious options for soldiers, and whether the Defense Department needs additional resources for food options.
"Through your experience as a junior officer, you can empathize with the importance of a reliable, nutritious dining facility, and its importance to morale," lawmakers wrote to Hegseth. "You are now ultimately responsible for the welfare of these service members."
Service officials interviewed by Military.com were unable to answer detailed questions on how the Army decides food budgets, noting only that budgets are based on the volume of soldiers using the dining facilities. But that data does not take into account the number of soldiers eligible to use the facilities or how many are on base at a given time.
Army officials declined to comment for this story.
"They haven't given a clear explanation on what's being done with food; some of their responses have been really confusing," one congressional staffer told Military.com on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, referring to behind-the-scenes conversations between the Army and Capitol Hill on the matter. "There's some fundamental confusion of how money works."
Head count numbers do not account for long-term training events or deployments[5], when troops are away from base facilities -- sending a false signal to Army planners that troops are choosing not to use their meal entitlements.
A 2022 report[6] from the Government Accountability Office found that the services, with the exception of the Air Force[7], do not adequately track how often troops make use of dining facilities.
"We found that Army food program officials do not track the extent to which service members with a meal entitlement use the entitlement and do not have plans to do so," the report noted.
Senators who signed the letter to Hegseth include Warnock; Jon Ossoff, D-Ga.; Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; Michael Bennet, D-Colo.; Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii; and John Hickenlooper, D-Colo.
House members who signed onto the effort include Reps. Rob Wittman, R-Va.; Jen Kiggans, R-Va.; Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif.; Don Bacon, R-Neb.; Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis.; Sanford Bishop, D-Ga.; Seth Moulton, D-Mass.; Abraham Hamadeh, R-Ariz.; John McGuire, R-Va.; Lance Gooden, R-Texas; Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J.; Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa.; Don Davis, D-N.C.; and Salud Carbajal, D-Calif.
Three weeks after President Donald Trump’s extraordinary purge of inspectors general across the federal government, a document arrived in Navy Lt. Cmdr. Shannon Bencs’ email inbox.
It was the day before Valentine’s Day, but what was detailed in the 64-page report under the official seal of the Inspector General of the Department of Defense was a relationship gone sideways:
“WHISTLEBLOWER REPRISAL INVESTIGATION, LIEUTENANT COMMANDER SHANNON BENCS, U.S. NAVY, NAVAL SUPPLY FLEET LOGISTICS CENTER,
PEARL HARBOR, HAWAII.”
Bencs had been waiting for nearly four years for the report since filing complaints against her commanders, claiming they had retaliated against her for exposing significant issues before a devastating fuel leak at the Navy’s largest storage facility in 2021 contaminated drinking water for tens of thousands of service members and their families.
But when she scoured the preliminary findings, her heart sank. The DoD inspector general found no link between her whistleblowing and her negative performance reviews.
“It was like a kick in the gut,” Bencs told The War Horse. “I had a feeling that they would protect the Navy.”
While Congress empowered inspectors general with independent oversight to root out waste, fraud, and abuse[1], critics say what happened to Bencs is typical of a system that is overseen by the agencies that are under the spotlight themselves.
Now, some advocates for greater independence and accountability are asking: Could IG reform really come under Trump?
Retired Lt. Col. Ryan Sweazey, a T-38 Talon pilot, served as an inspector general during his time in the Air Force and now heads a group calling for reforms. (Delaney Gonzales/U.S. Air Force)
‘97.6%’ Told ‘No, You’re Liars’
Trump raised alarm with his unprecedented sacking of more than a dozen heads of inspector general offices[2] during his first week back in the White House, including at the Defense Department and Department of Veterans Affairs. A month later, he turned his ax on Pentagon military leaders, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Critics say the housecleaning is simply part of a larger consolidation of power—not a pretext for reform—and that the dramatic downsizing of federal workers under Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is fostering an even deeper fear of speaking out. But the leaders of the veteran-run Walk the Talk Foundation[3] are still hoping the president will make good on a campaign promise[4] to “make every inspector general’s office independent and physically separated from the departments they oversee”—a change they say is critical to creating a system whistleblowers can trust.
Walk the Talk founder Ryan Sweazey is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who served as an inspector general for an air wing from 2013 to 2016. He says he later found himself subjected to professional reprisal after reporting workplace hostility and discrimination in the Defense Intelligence Agency. Sweazey points to a Congressional Research Service report in 2020[5] on how infrequently whistleblower reprisal complaints are substantiated: just 2.4% of cases.
“So 97.6% of cases are told, ‘No, you’re liars or you’re wrong, go suck it,’ right?” Sweazey told The War Horse. “It’s an extremely high-risk, low probability of quote-unquote success system.”
Officers named in Bencs’ reprisal report were faulted in the Navy’s separate findings about the handling of the Red Hill fuel leak that sickened thousands in Hawaii. The draft IG report found her commanding officer at the time had motive to retaliate against her, having known about multiple reports she made regarding fuel leaks into Pearl Harbor and a new fire suppression system that had been taken offline.
But the report found actions her senior officers took, including unfavorable fitness reports, and a decision at one point to put Bencs on travel orders, did not adversely affect her career, or were linked to her job performance and not her reporting. The Defense Department's Office of Inspector General did not respond to an interview request, and The War Horse tried to contact Bencs' supervisors but did not hear back.
She says the IG’s interviews with her felt adversarial, seeming to probe for inconsistencies in her story.
“It’s like every time I [talked] to them, they’re just trying to find a way to disprove what I was saying, thinking I didn’t have evidence to support it,” she said.
‘72 Hours of Training’
The Walk the Talk Foundation has created a draft executive order and legislative proposal outlining changes that would make IGs less beholden to the organizations they report on. These include creating an independent inspector general for DoD that does not depend on military command-appointed investigators; more and better training for IG staff; mandatory timelines for completing investigations; and a fast-track process for Freedom of Information Act document requests related to IG investigations.
“When I was an inspector general, I received three business days of training, and then suddenly I was an IG,” Sweazey said. “I think that’s absurd, especially when I was overseeing investigations that have real, serious ramifications and you could get dismissed from the military via the administrative process—that’s a big deal. For that, you need somebody with more than 72 hours of training, in my humble opinion.”
Sweazey noted that inspectors general are political appointees and often treated politically—Trump replaced a number of inspectors general[8] from the previous administration during his first term in 2020, and President Barack Obama removed AmeriCorps IG Gerald Walpin in 2009[9]. But any indicator that Trump will make good on his promise of IG independence has yet to come.
“I have guarded optimism, I guess is the best phrase, that the removal of the head of the agency is a step in that direction,” Sweazey said. “But true reform has not yet materialized.”
Don’t expect it, says Joe Spielberger at the Project on Government Oversight, an independent watchdog organization that reports on government waste, corruption, and accountability. He worries that the system, flawed as it is, could become less accountable, more politicized and beholden to the demands of senior leadership in the new administration.
“When we see these very clear and blatant moves, like with these recent firings, that really paints a picture that these decisions are being made for partisan political reasons, and not because of the need for increased accountability in the federal government,” said Spielberger, the senior policy counsel at POGO’s Effective and Accountable Government team. “It really also plays a huge role in creating that wider chilling effect.
“It can just really cause much more confusion and chaos and lack of clarity about whether these individuals in these [inspector general] offices really are serving in the best interests of the people.”
Positive Signs at VA Before Firings
Well-known veteran whistleblowers say change has been slow in coming at the Department of Veterans Affairs, an organization historically so beset by reports of whistleblower reprisal that in 2017[10] Congress established a separate Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection to remedy the problem. But they point to recent signs of positive change—before Trump’s firings.
Shea Wilkes, an Army veteran who played a key role in exposing the VA’s infamous waitlist scandal[11] while working at the Shreveport, Louisiana, VA Medical Center in 2014, has testified before Congress[12] about being placed under criminal investigation and effectively suspended from his work after blowing the whistle. Wilkes still has issues with the VA OIG—he’s bothered that it has “no bite”—no enforcement authority over the VA with its recommendations—and contends that investigations can often be a box-checking exercise.
Shea Wilkes, pictured here during a 2008 deployment to Afghanistan, was suspended after speaking out about a waitlist scandal when he worked at a VA Medical Center in Shreveport, Louisiana. (Photo courtesy of Shea Wilkes)
But Wilkes said he was impressed by his interactions with Michael Missal, the VA inspector general who had led the office for eight years before being fired by Trump in January. Despite Wilkes’ reputation for calling out leaders, which has caused some to keep their distance, Missal engaged right away, he said.
“I communicated with him via email directly a few times, and he would actually respond to me,” Wilkes said, adding that he believed investigations under Missal were more aggressive and direct.
“I thought he did better, and I thought [the VA OIG investigations under Missal] would actually call out the VA,” Wilkes said.
Missal, who joined seven other fired inspectors general[13] last month in filing a lawsuit alleging that their terminations without notice were illegal, told The War Horse that he’d taken pains to stay objective and distinct from the VA in his job. Once, he said, he turned down an invitation to join an office birthday party for the VA secretary.
“I said, ‘The last thing I want is for me to be seen celebrating the secretary’s birthday,’” Missal recalled. “It’s things like that—to me, you’re giving the appearance you’re not independent. And I never went to staff meetings of the VA; I never went to any event in which we didn’t have sort of an official role.”
While Missal acknowledges the OIG still has no enforcement authority over the VA, he said he worked to improve accountability within the office, launching a data group that would request information ranging from dialysis recipients to prosthetics purchases to improve data analytics and locate waste and malfeasance.
What Comes Next
Missal has little optimism for what will come next for IGs in the current administration, fearing that the watchdog agencies could be dismantled, or that fired inspectors general will be replaced with leaders less concerned about accountability than with pleasing the White House.
“Either way ... veterans are going to suffer, because we did so many things that helped VA improve, which benefited veterans,” he told The War Horse.
Navy fuels director Shannon Bencs walks a portion of the seven miles of tunnels of the Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility in 2020. (Daniel Mayberry/U.S. Navy)
As for Bencs, she’s not giving up—she plans to submit a response to the DoD IG report with statements from witnesses she says will back her up.
Her role as a whistleblower in the catastrophic leak has been highlighted in the local media and championed by local groups like O’ahu Water Protectors[14].
“If I had just gone on and [said] everything was hunky dory ... I don’t think I would have learned what I learned,” she said.
Like the Walk the Talk Foundation, Bencs wants to see the IG fully removed from the purview of the Defense Department, and hopes the current upheaval will force a move in that direction.
“I think this is a good catalyst to force change with my case and with others,” she said. “It’s got to stop.”
We Want to Hear From You
At The War Horse, we want to truly understand and share the unique challenges service members, veterans, and their families are facing. Are you a veteran or military spouse who recently lost your job due to federal agency cuts? Are you experiencing any interruptions, cancelations or delays to your medical care or benefits? How is all this affecting your family?
You can contact The War Horse at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.[15]or via encrypted Protonmail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.[16]
This War Horse story was reported by Hope Hodge Seck, edited by Mike Frankel, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Hrisanthi Pickett wrote the headlines.
Editors Note: This article[17] first appeared on The War Horse,[18] an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter[19].
