John xxxxxx,
When I deployed to Afghanistan as part of 82nd Airborne Division, I learned how to lead in times of crisis.
In the Army, you learn what it means to serve — and serve with distinction.
You figure out how to adapt to new challenges.
You disregard anything that could be a distraction from the mission at hand.
Never during my service did I ask one of my fellow soldiers who they voted for or what their political ideology was. We’re there to serve our country, not ourselves or our party.
And when our soldiers return home, they want to keep serving their country and community.
Many choose the path of federal employment. About 1 in 4 federal workers is a veteran, and over the last few months, I’ve gotten to know many of them well.
They inspect our food, discover cures for disease, keep planes from crashing, and protect communities from violent crime.
But under President Trump, many of these veterans are now being shoved into the unemployment line.
It’s hard to overstate the havoc wreaked by the Trump-Vance Administration’s workforce reductions.
In February, a report out of the House Appropriations Committee indicated that mass firings under Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE Initiative eliminated nearly 6,000 veterans from their positions in the federal government.
In July, the V.A. reported that the agency was on pace to reduce staff by 30,000 this fall.
If we want to be a nation that makes “Thank you for your service” mean something again, we need to stop these widespread firings of federal employees and restore federal public servants’ faith in their government.
These are my people.
I am the governor of a state that’s home to over 260,000 federal workers and over 300,000 veterans. It’s not my job to look at their political beliefs and decide whether they’re worth helping. It’s my job to help them, period. And it sickens me that the Trump Administration is looking at them and saying, “You’re on your own.”
In Maryland, we’re proving there is a better way:
And we’re just getting started.
I joined the United States Army Reserves when I was seventeen years old.
I was so young that my mother had to sign the paperwork. My military experience laid the foundation for everything that came after for me, from starting and running my own small business, to a successful tenure as the CEO of one of the largest poverty-fighting organizations in the country, to being elected the 63rd Governor of Maryland and the first Black governor in our state’s history. It all started with lessons learned in the Army.
We need to nurture those lessons in others with policies that honor our veterans’ hunger to serve.
This Veterans Day, President Trump and his advisors would be wise to follow what we’ve done in Maryland to protect the job market, encourage service, and uplift our veteran community.
Elevate,
Wes
