As veterans deal with job loss, stress, Henrico organizations partner to plan career fairs

Funding slashes to federal jobs by President Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency are hitting some Virginia veterans hard. 

Trump established DOGE, an agency first headed by Elon Musk, on the first day of his presidency to “maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” DOGE has made sweeping cuts to federal employment under an initiative to cut spending. 

And though many voters favor cuts to government spending, they’re less supportive of cutting federal jobs. 

Some of those job cuts are hitting veterans hard in Virginia – which has the third- highest share of veterans in the nation and where veterans make up 28% of the federal workforce – and in Metro Richmond. They’ve prompted the leaders of American Legion Post 233 in Varina (a veteran organization affected by the cuts) and a C&F Bank branch in the county to partner to plan several local job fairs for vets in the coming weeks.

Post member Charley Faniel served 20 years in the military and fought in three tours – Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan. 

He now works remotely from Chesterfield County at the Veteran Affairs call center, a free resource to support soldiers with healthcare, benefits and crisis support. It can be a hefty job, but Faniel gets it done. He said he’ll always take care of the troops and veterans. 

In February, Faniel was left with a slew of work. It wasn’t because of more calls, he said – it was because of DOGE. 

DOGE started to ask the VA call assistants what they had done that day, as a way to justify their jobs, Faniel said. 

“You don’t want to be bothered by that every day when you go to work,” he said. “I’m a 20-year veteran. Nobody’s standing over me.” 

It felt unnecessary, Faniel said, and it proved nothing. The VA already has systems in place to measure performance, he said. And the timely work started to drive people away. 

Since February, the VA call center that Faniel works from remotely has lost four people. Now, he works 10-hour-long days because he’s had to take on the job of another person. 

Post commander Ken Harvey connected with Faniel a few months ago after the post leadership started hearing about a rise in veteran unemployment.

In May, Harvey partnered with manager Stephen Cowan at C&F Bank in Henrico to put together a job fair for unemployed veterans. 

Post 233 will hold its first job fair for veterans on July 31 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m at 8088 Recreation Road in Varina, and a larger job fair is being planned for Sept. 26 and Sept. 28. 

“It’s time for the community to come together as one collaborative front,” Harvey said. “Let’s look at all corners, and through a small part here and grow with it, spread it out, come back and talk about how we can be better the next time.” 

About 3.6% of veterans in the labor force nationally were unemployed in May, a number that increased from 2.8% last year. As of June, the VA has plans to cut more than 800,000 positions nationally.

 To Faniel, the DOGE oversight was a push too far. 

“How did you prove that you’re cutting waste, fraud and abuse from the veterans standpoint by attacking people that are helping the veterans?” Faniel asked. 

About 41% of veterans are in need of mental health support programs each year, and a 2024 VA study found that suicide is the second leading cause of death for veterans under the age of 45. 

The veteran suicide hotline hit a record high number of 88,000 calls, texts and chats in March 2023 alone. The VA call center helps to connect veterans with mental health resources, including the hotline, a service that is crucial as crises are rising. 

“We need these call centers now. The things that they’re doing are really affecting the number of calls,” Faniel said. 

The slots of those four workers are no longer open, he said, because DOGE has cut that funding.

Faniel said he wants to help, and he’s getting the job done, but it’s become so exhausting that he starts looking forward to the weekend on Monday. He already suffers with mental health after serving three tours, and the extra workload is adding on. 

The post has garnered support from the community to organize the job fair. Kimberly Burris, a 21-year-veteran and member of the post, was “volun-told” about the event, she said with a laugh. 

In April, Burris medically retired from the Defense Logistics Agency, a government agency that manages the global supply chain for military operations. 

Burris, along with other employees at the DLA, started to receive paperwork early this year. The paperwork was a choice: a layoff with guaranteed pay into the fall or taking on more tasks similar to what Faniel experienced. 

There was a lot of uncertainty, she said. Every day, something new was coming out, and she feared for her job.

More than 35% of the DLA workforce are veterans. Burris worked with many veterans, herself. When she first got the job, military experience was a leg up. But Burris felt that the federal cuts were targeting veterans, especially those retired from the military, to prevent “double-dipping” into government spending with retirement checks and contract salaries. 

Burris chose to medically retire because the uncertainty and stress was just too much, she said. 

She wasn’t the only one. Her brother, who was also a federal employee, resigned on the first round because he didn’t want to go through the stress. And one of her coworkers just quit. 

The job fair is more than just an event, Harvey said. It’s an effort to organize the community to support one of the most vulnerable communities: veterans.