{"id":152509,"date":"2025-06-07T10:31:01","date_gmt":"2025-06-07T10:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/veterans-protest-against-trump-cuts-at-dc-rally-promises-made-to-us-have-come-under-attack-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-06-07T10:31:01","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T10:31:01","slug":"veterans-protest-against-trump-cuts-at-dc-rally-promises-made-to-us-have-come-under-attack-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/veterans-protest-against-trump-cuts-at-dc-rally-promises-made-to-us-have-come-under-attack-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Veterans protest against Trump cuts at DC rally: \u2018Promises made to us have come under attack\u2019 – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 200 actions held across US today, organizers said, as VA officials claim cuts won\u2019t affect healthcare or benefits
A flurry of red, white and blue American flags fluttered across the National Mall on Friday as more than 5,000 military veterans and their allies descended on Washington<\/a> to protest against the planned elimination of 80,000 jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the cancellation of hundreds of contracts for veterans services with community organizations.
\u201cI hope that in the future veterans will be able to get their benefits,\u201d said David Magnus, a navy veteran who decided to travel from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after his doctor told him she was quitting during a recent mental health<\/a> appointment. Before Donald Trump<\/a> returned to office in January, \u201cthe VA was good\u201d, he said, but since then medical staff had faced harassment that puts the entire system at risk.
\u201cIt used to be, you\u2019d call and get an answer,\u201d he said. \u201cNow, so much is going on that they don\u2019t know where to put you.\u201d
Organizers said that in addition to the march in Washington, there were more than 200 corresponding actions across the country, from watch parties to vigils held at VA clinics. Many veterans told the Guardian they came to the nation\u2019s capital on their own after hearing about the rally online.
The VA secretary, Doug Collins, has said the cuts are designed to trim bureaucratic bloat and will have no impact on veterans\u2019 healthcare or benefits. Reporting by the Guardian<\/a> last month found the agency, which provides healthcare to more than 9 million veterans, has already been plunged into crisis. Across the nation, appointments have been cancelled, hospital units closed, the physical safety of patients put at risk.
Demonstrators said the Trump administration<\/a> was seeking to destroy the VA, the largest integrated healthcare system in the United States, with 170 government-run hospitals and more than 1,000 clinics, and replace it with a private voucher program that would provide substandard care.
\u201cWe\u2019re a generation of service. We volunteered and stepped up to lead. Now we are seeing the promises made to us come under attack,\u201d said Kyleanne Hunter, the chief executive of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and a Marine Corps veteran who flew multiple combat missions as an AH1-W Super Cobra attack pilot.
The administration\u2019s proposed budget<\/a> for the VA, released on Friday, slashes spending for \u201cmedical services\u201d by $12bn \u2013 or nearly 20% \u2013 an amount offset by a corresponding 50% boost in funding for veterans seeking healthcare in the private sector.
\u201cWe\u2019re already being starved,\u201d said Sharda Fornnarino, a navy veteran and one of about three dozen nurses brought to the rally by the National Nurses United union. Fornnarino, who works at the VA in Denver, Colorado, said that while politicians in Washington debate permanent staff reductions, essential healthcare positions are being left vacant.
A blue-ribbon commission established by the agency last year found <\/a>veterans received significantly better care at lower cost from the public system. Private providers operated with little oversight, they wrote, and \u201care not required to demonstrate competency in diagnosing and treating the complex care needs of veterans nor in understanding military culture, which is often critical to providing quality care for veterans\u201d.
The VA says the budget submission \u201cprioritizes care for our most vulnerable veterans, including those experiencing homelessness or at risk of suicide\u201d and \u201celiminates nonessential programming and bureaucratic overhead that does not directly serve the veteran\u201d.
The march was held on the 81st anniversary of D-day, when Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, a decisive turn in the struggle against Nazi Germany during the second world war. Organizers said their inspiration went back even further \u2013 to the \u201cBonus Army\u201d march on Washington in 1932 during the depths of the Great Depression, when thousands of first world war veterans gathered on the National Mall to demand promised benefits, only to have the US military<\/a> deployed against them.
Christopher Purdy, an Afghanistan war veteran and organizer of Friday\u2019s march, said the Bonus Army rally helped set the stage for the New Deal social programs and eventually the GI Bill, which provided higher education, healthcare and home ownership to veterans returning from the second world war.
Other speakers criticized Trump\u2019s decision to impose a travel ban on visitors from 12 countries, including Afghanistan, where many of the demonstrators served alongside translators who risked their lives for the US. Shortly after taking office in January, Trump ordered a pause on the US refugee admissions program, putting translators\u2019 safety in doubt.
\u201cWe all left behind people who are now marked,\u201d said Nadim Yousify, who immigrated to the United States in 2015 after working as a US government translator in Afghanistan and later joined the Marine Corps.<\/p>\n

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More than 200 actions held across US today, organizers said, as VA officials claim cuts won\u2019t affect healthcare or benefitsA flurry of red, white and blue American flags fluttered across the National Mall on Friday as more than 5,000 military veterans and their allies descended on Washington to protest against the planned elimination of 80,000 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":152510,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}