By Gabrielle Wallace/Cronkite News
PHOENIX – Veterans laughed and teased each other outside the Arizona State Capitol, but the reason for their gathering wasn’t so chipper. Dozens joined with lawmakers and community advocates to denounce the federal government’s treatment of veterans.
Their main message was loud and clear on the shirts many wore: “Stop Firing Vets.”
“The same government that thanks us on Veterans Day turns its back on us the other 364 days of the year,” said Omar Algeciras, a 20-year Air Force veteran and vice president of the American Federation of Government Workers Local 2391, a union representing federal employees.
At the rally Monday morning, he and others called for the federal government to do more for people who had been willing to sacrifice their lives for their country. They demanded more job support, improved social services, and an end to deportations.
They chanted “si se puede,” Spanish for “yes we can” or “we can do it.” It expressed the rally’s theme: the third and final destination of a three-stop tour across the state.
Only a dozen states have more veterans than Arizona. Roughly 515,000 live in the state, 7.4% of the population. Those veterans haven’t been exempt from workforce cuts – in fact, they have been disproportionately affected, veterans said, because about one in four federal workers is a veteran.
“The firing of these federal workers sends a message that our service, our dedication, does not matter, and that is wrong,” said Signa Oliver, an Army veteran and member of the Phoenix Union School Board, choking up as veterans behind her waved signs and American flags.
At the beginning of his second term in office, President Donald Trump promised sweeping federal job cuts to curb spending. The Office of Personnel Management has projected a reduction of 300,000 federal jobs by the end of the year.
The veterans felt betrayed, they said.
“The benefits and services that we earned are being stripped away from us,” said Algeciras. “Veterans who fought for this country are now fighting to keep their jobs. Veterans who risk their lives are being told they are expendable.”
Apart from job losses, the rally also focused on Department of Veterans Affairs services and veterans facing deportation.
The rally came as the longest shutdown in U.S. history was winding down. The Senate approved a plan to reopen the government on Monday and keep it funded through Jan. 30. The House will vote Wednesday afternoon on the deal, which includes a freeze on federal job cuts. until the stopgap funding bill runs out. Democratic holdouts in the Senate also wrested a small concession on Affordable Care Act subsidies, a promise that the Senate will vote next month on the expiring subsidies.
The deal promises respite for federal workers through the holidays. But it doesn’t make complaints and concerns disappear altogether, they said.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat who served in the Marines, said veterans won’t stand for being used as political pawns any longer.
“We will fight for the dignity of veterans,” he said. “We will fight for the livelihood of their families, and we will continue to fight for that sometimes unfortunately elusive American Dream that has been trampled under the politics of the day.”
Rep. Aaron Márquez, D-Phoenix, also took to the podium. Márquez co-founded VetsForward, a liberal advocacy group, and served two deployments in Afghanistan in the Army.
“I don’t think we make America great again by firing the people that serve the country in uniform and continue to serve our federal government,” Márquez said. “I think we can make America great again if we remember what’s happening right now, in about a year from now, when we have elections again and we fire the people that are trying to fire our veterans.”
Rally attendees poked and prodded at each other, making fun of rival military branches.
The rally fell on the Marine Corps’ 250th birthday, and several “oorahs” erupted from the crowd. The playful jeering and cheering didn’t take away from the central message, which called on veterans and community members to speak out and pressure their state and federal representatives.
“We are warriors,” Oliver said. “Through our voices, through our organizing, through our activism, we won’t give in, and we won’t surrender.”
Márquez encouraged civilians to support veterans year-round, not just on the one day dedicated to their memory.
“I think for those of you that are not veterans,” he said, “the best way you can celebrate veterans over this next year is to find a way to make a difference.”
