Veterans react to proposed VA cuts

Amid ongoing federal cuts, the VA has been reported to be cutting 80,000 employees, accounting for a quarter of its workforce.

Veterans in the Lawton community hold differing views of what the cuts could mean.

Bill Winn, of Lawton, who served in the Army for 21 years, said “initially I was shocked, just like anyone else.” But after more data was released, he believes that “short term headaches and chaos” will lead to a long term more efficient VA system.

Not all veterans are confident that the changes will result in gains in efficiency or efficacy, however: “ … when learning of these planned cuts I immediately thought about the devastating effect of cutting such an extremely high number of VA jobs would have on veterans services, as well as the additional strain on the already inadequately staffed agencies and overburdened VA employees who currently perform the work in support of our veterans,” said Will D. Scott, president of the local NAACP Branch 6131-B and a U.S. Army veteran.

Scott said that the majority of his worries are about health care, housing services, and others provided by the VA.

“In addition to the strain on veterans services, I am also concerned because veterans actually make up about 30 percent of the federal workforce. These proposed cuts will also disproportionately affect veterans who are a part of the workforce. To me these job cuts will inevitably cause personal and widespread financial anxiety. I also believe it will cause some to have family hardships,” said Scott.

Wanda Cope, an Army veteran who served for nine years, said that she is also worried about the possibility of VA cuts, although her initial reaction was a laugh.

“It sounds ridiculous. We just started getting enough people, maybe. It just doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

“It just strengthened the questions I already had. I already questioned the health care I’m getting. It’s really hard to say what this is going to affect,” said Cope.