U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper listens to veterans talk about how the Trump administration’s cuts to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs have affected them and other veterans, on March 18, 2025, at the the Aurora Mental Health Center. (Lindsey Toomer/Colorado Newsline)

Ryan Bevard worked at a hospital within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for eight years before he got a position he had been vying for as a social work associate.

Because he changed positions within the department, Bevard was again considered a probationary employee despite his eight years of service. He was one month away from progressing from that probationary status when he was laid off in February.

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“I fought for my position to try and help other veterans,” he said. 

U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Colorado Democrat, listened to Bevard and about two dozen other veterans talk about how the Trump administration’s funding cuts and layoffs have affected their ability to access health care and other benefits at the Aurora Mental Health Center Tuesday.

“These veterans put their life on the line,” Hickenlooper said. “In many cases they suffered debilitating consequences to their physical health, to their mental health, things that are never going to be back 100% the way they were.”

Bevard helped homeless veterans find housing. He was showing apartments to a veteran when he got the email notifying him he lost his job. 

Each veteran had a social worker as well as a social work associate assigned to their case, Bevard said. Now that he is no longer with the VA, he said the social workers who were already overwhelmed have to work with each veteran alone. 

Brett Taylor, also a veteran, moved to the Denver area in August to accept a position as a social work associate with the VA. He found out members of his team were let go while he was shopping at Lowe’s in February. 

“When you fire people … how they’ve gone about doing it, I don’t see how any veteran in America will trust the VA right now because wait times are already super long. So now they’re going to get even longer,” Taylor said.

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Bevard and Taylor said they have seen news saying probationary employees must be reinstated, but neither of them have heard officially that they have their jobs back. Bevard said it feels like everything he has worked for “is useless or irrelevant, that we were just discarded like trash.” He said he typically stays out of politics, but now that he has been directly affected by a decision from elected officials, he sees “how terrible things are getting.”

I don’t see how any veteran in America will trust the VA right now because wait times are already super long. So now they’re going to get even longer.

Hickenlooper said the notion that the VA is riddled with “waste, fraud and abuse” — which is what Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency is tasked with targeting — angers him. He called the “draconian cuts” to the VA “egregious,” and said he doesn’t think his Republican colleagues in the congressional majority have heard how cuts and layoffs have affected veterans. He said he has good relationships with about 20 to 25 Republican senators, and the sooner they hear stories like those shared with him in Aurora, the sooner VA funding will be restored. 

“I don’t think they’ll be happy with what they’re going to hear,” Hickenlooper said. “They believe in the military, they believe that people that have served our country in defense deserve to be cared for. I think almost all of them do.”

Veterans losing their jobs without cause will further worsen the increasing suicide rates among veterans, Hickenlooper said. He said he supports shrinking the government, but “random firings without cause” is “not how to do it.”

“Everyone who’s still working is filled with doubt and anxiety, so they’re not doing a good job,” Hickenlooper said. “You’re not making government more efficient, you’re making them less efficient.”

Amy Demenge, women veterans state coordinator for the Colorado Division of Veterans Affairs, said about 47,000 women veterans call Colorado home. She said the biggest fear among women veterans is that they will lose access to health care. 

Because of the Trump administration’s efforts to slash anything related to DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — an optional health training program offered to women transitioning out of active duty has been removed from the Department of Defense’s training, Demenge said. She offered to go to all of the bases in Colorado and talk to women about their health in light of the training being stopped, and two of them denied her offer “because that is DEI,” she said.

“I explained to them, but women still have to have gynecological exams. We still have to have mammograms,” she said. “Those are things that women need whether you’re a veteran or not, and I was told that cannot be discussed.”

Marsha Unruh, program director at the Home Front Military Network in Colorado Springs, said an 87-year-old veteran she works with needed to schedule a primary care appointment, and the soonest he could get one was six months out.