WESTFIELD — A decommissioned F-15A fighter jet, on display near the entrance of Barnes Air National Guard Base in Westfield, greeted demonstrators as they assembled to demand the base’s closure on Feb. 23. The protest was part of peace group World Beyond War’s “global day of action” to shut down military installations.
The demonstration was focused on closing the almost 750 foreign military bases that the United States operates overseas. Speakers addressed a wide array of issues, from climate change to health care, arguing that resources allocated to military expansion could instead be used to address pressing domestic needs. The humanitarian disaster in Gaza was another major focus of the protest.
Organized by a broad coalition of local activist groups, including Demilitarize Western Mass and Western Mass Climate Action Now, the demonstration followed an action near Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee on Feb. 20. There, protestors with the local Veterans for Peace chapter handed out fliers to military personnel leaving the base, encouraging them to disobey illegal or immoral orders, and informing them of the formally recognized channels for obtaining conscientious objection status.
Conscientious objection status allows military personnel to be exempt from military service due to moral, ethical, or religious beliefs against war.
In conversations with The Shoestring, some activists painted the demonstrations as an attempt to bridge divides between local military service members and peace advocates amid the Trump administration’s recent layoffs of thousands of U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs employees and cuts to medical research conducted through the institution.
Ben Grosscup, a local peace activist and folk artist, said soldiers and military personnel “have a special role in resistance movements,” commending the veterans who participated in Sunday’s demonstration.
One of those veterans was David Feliciano. A 27-year-old veteran of the Army, Feliciano said they were recruited out of a “credit recovery program” at West Springfield High School. They said they were trained to pilot a General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle, a remotely operated combat drone.
Facing homelessness after coming out to their parents, Feliciano says they weren’t “opposed to the idea of joining the military because I didn’t know what the hell I was getting into.”
Feliciano says they participated in drone surveillance flights over the U.S. border during their training. They recalled facing a career in drone operations as “disconcerting.”
After struggling with drone training, Felicano was reassigned to an accelerated nursing program. Following a suicide attempt, they said they were honorably discharged before completing their training.
“People here are not happy,” Feliciano said outside the base’s gates on Sunday, referring to service members who work there. “These are people who are being exploited by the same system that makes us miserable as civilians.”
Reacting to Trump’s staffing cuts at the VA, Feliciano says they weren’t surprised “because at the end of the day, what are [veterans] getting more than a few bread crumbs already?”
On Feb. 14, the Trump administration cut over 1,000 jobs at the VA, followed by a second round of 1,400 layoffs on Monday. These employees include “researchers at VA who do lifesaving work for our veterans — research to prevent veteran suicide, build life-changing prosthetics, address opioid addiction, and more,” according to a statement from U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-WA, a senior member and former chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.
In a sharp rebuke of the Trump administration’s recent layoffs, Veterans of Foreign Wars National Commander Al Lipphardt pointed out that almost a third of VA employees are veterans themselves.
“Since the federal government is the single largest employer of veterans in the nation, it’s veterans who are being indiscriminately harmed in this bull-’DOGE’-ing of the federal workforce,” Lipphardt wrote in a statement released Tuesday, referring to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency being led by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk. DOGE is leading the Trump administration’s charge to slash federal programs.
Lipphardt added that “studies show having gainful employment is a social determinant of health and gets ahead of arguably one of the root causes of veteran suicide.”
Mass layoffs aren’t the only way that the Trump administration’s shakeup of the federal government is reverberating at the VA. Critical funding for medical research conducted through the agency is being cut, with staff fearing that it’s only the beginning.
Last week, Musk sent an email to all federal employees asking them to respond with a bulleted list of their accomplishments the week prior, threatening workers with termination if they didn’t respond. The White House claimed that 1 million federal employees, over a third of the federal workforce, responded to the email as of Tuesday.
Despite some agencies allegedly telling workers not to respond to the email and internal fights within the Trump administration over Musk’s move, VA Chief of Staff and recent Trump appointee Christopher Syrek instructed VA employees to respond to the email.
“On behalf of the Department of Veterans Affairs, I am informing you that the email is valid,” he wrote in an email to all VA staff on Sunday evening.
A local VA employee, who spoke to The Shoestring on the condition of anonymity due to fears of retaliation from their employer, provided internal communications revealing that their supervisor instructed employees to respond to Musk’s email just hours after Syrek’s directive.
The anonymous VA employee expressed frustration with what they see as regional VA leadership’s capitulation to the Trump administration’s directives while acknowledging that they’ve been put in a difficult position.
On top of the confusion caused by Musk’s email, the employee described an atmosphere of unease at their workplace as the possibility of future job and budget cuts looms.
Another internal email verified by The Shoestring, from Tuesday morning, shared mental health resources for VA employees amid the layoffs only to be followed by another email on Thursday informing them that the federal contract for their mental health services had been cancelled.
The Shoestring contacted the Boston VA office requesting a response to the anonymous employee’s claims. The Boston VA forwarded The Shoestring’s inquiry to the VA’s Central Office, which did not respond.
While some local veterans have expressed concerns about how changes at the federal level will affect them downstream, Massachusetts, like many states, has its own veteran assistance laws independent of the federal Department of Veterans Affairs.
Massachusetts’ Chapter 115, which allocates financial assistance and medical care to veterans in need, requires that every town and city in Massachusetts have a dedicated veterans service officer to administer these benefits, which include housing assistance, healthcare, and even subsidized burials. While a VSO’s duties as a municipal employee are largely independent of the VA, they are usually certified to process VA claims from veterans in their towns.
Marc Massey, a veteran and VSO for West Springfield, referred to Chapter 115 as an effective “safety net” that “insulates a lot of veterans that may be concerned about what may potentially happen in the federal government,” given that the state-level veterans’ care law entitles them to financial assistance to bring them just below the state’s median income level under certain conditions.
Massey also cited a Jan. 27 statement from then Acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs Todd Hunter, who claimed that “all 44 of its financial assistance programs will continue uninterrupted.”
While acknowledging the concerns of others, Massey remains skeptical that any broad or significant cuts will hit the VA calling it “wickedly politically unadvised.”
On Wednesday, the VA announced it was pausing billions of dollars in planned contract cancellations after bipartisan backlash.
“We’re marching right along with everybody else,” Massey said when asked how he and other VSOs are navigating the uncertainty surrounding federal changes.
Correction: This article has been updated to correct information about David Feliciano’s background. They are an Army veteran who was recruited out of West Springfield High School.
Dan McGlynn is an investigative reporter covering social movements and institutional power in western Massachusetts. He can be reached at danmcglynn@protonmail.com. Follow him on Instagram @danmcglynn_ or on X @danmcglynn_.
