Ann Marie Patterson-Powell (left) and Dr. Kyle Horton (right) discuss the nation's obligation to veterans during a "Voices for Veterans" event in Fayetteville. (Photo: Screenshot from event video stream)
A panel of speakers at a Tuesday “Voices for Veterans” event in Fayetteville agreed that America has a moral obligation to care for members of the military after they have completed their service.
The panelists’ remarks were in response to a question by moderator Michael McElroy, a political correspondent at Cardinal & Pine, the online publication that hosted the event for the purpose of “supporting North Carolina’s veterans and military families.”
Big VA cuts spark big worries
The comments come amid concerns about steep staffing cuts at Veterans Administration hospitals. VA staff and supporters contend proposed cuts will hinder the ability to adequately care for veterans. More than 80,000 positions — just over 17% of the roughly 470,000 people it employs — could be eliminated as part of a major restructuring of the federal government’s second largest department.
The Trump administration is thinking about numbers and not people when it proposes such deep cuts to the VA, said Ann Marie Patterson-Powell, a VA nurse.
“They’re not looking at the human side of it. Patterson-Powell said. “We promised those who signed up and left their families, their homes — everything behind — to serve the country. We said, ‘If you do this for me, we’re going to take care of you when you come back.’”
The nation must do for veterans what it said it would do with “no strings attached, with no arguments, with no pushback,” Patterson-Powell said.
Dr. Kyle Horton, founder of On Your Side Health, a nonprofit that addresses health care disparities and works to improve veterans’ health care, said the nation has a sacred obligation to protect those who serve.
“Those who wrote a blank check in service to this country with their lives do not deserve to be penny-pinched by Washington bureaucrats,” Horton said.
Horton added: “They don’t deserve to be penny-pinched by Captain Bone Spurs in the White House [a reference to President Donald Trump, who obtained a medical excuse from serving in the Vietnam War due to bone spurs] right now and they don’t deserve to be penny pinched by DOGE [the so-called Department of Government Efficiency] and [Elon] Musk who don’t even know what they’re doing. Period.”
Patterson-Powell said there is a push by the Trump administration to privatize the VA. That could be harmful to veterans who wouldn’t receive the specialized care they now get at the VA, she said.
Scott Peoples (Photo: Screenshot from event video stream)Scott Peoples, a retired Army captain, member of Veterans for Responsible Leadership (VFRL) and an advocate for free and fair elections, noted that America fights its wars with volunteers. The proposed budget VA budget cuts could make people think twice about making a commitment to serve, Peoples said.
“How we take care of them after service is kind of our Number One recruiting tool as well for future people who want to join the military,” Peoples said.
He said the Trump administration’s firing of VA staff members made him angry.
“Every single one of those people got into it for the right reasons; wants to serve their country by taking care of our veterans and the way they have so inhumanely shrugged off cutting people with no transparency, just people receiving emails, people having moved their families across country [to work at the VA], is just despicable,” Peoples said.
Grier Martin (Photo: Screenshot from event video stream)Grier Martin, Secretary of the NC Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, said the cuts would have a devastating impact on rural communities.
“If these cuts go through, you’re going to see the VA’s presence in rural areas start to dry out,” Martin said. “These are areas that are already starting to see their civilian hospitals close also.”
The state’s decision to expand Medicaid has been helpful in helping some rural hospitals remain open, he said, but veterans will have difficulty finding care near home if the VA’s presence is diminished.
“If you live on the coast, you’re not going to drive to Durham and you’re probably not going to drive to Fayetteville to the VA hospital to get your care,” Grier said.
Rep. Eric Ager (D-Buncombe) said the outpouring of concern and support for veterans gives him cause for hope amid threats of major cuts to the VA.
“That is how change happens,” Ager said. “It may not be immediate. It may not always be completely satisfying. But the fact that veterans are coming together, that the community is coming together to support veterans, I think will eventually lead to change.”
Threats to democracy
A second panel discussion moderated by Cardinal & Pine’s managing editor Billy Ball, focused on threats to democracy and the evolving role of veterans as defenders of democracy.
Bobby Jones (Photo: Screenshot from event video stream)Panelist Bobby Jones, president of VFRL and retired Navy commander, said he could see the cost of freedom in the faces of the veterans in the audience. Jones said the services the VA provides are essential to national security.
“I know this panel is about national security, but my thing is you cannot have one without the other,” Jones said. “The VA has to be sound in order for us to have a proper national security apparatus.”
Jones was critical of Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. He said neither man understands the concept of service to country.
“For the first time, I believe in American history, we have leadership that doesn’t get it, that thinks the Constitution is nothing more than a suggestion,” Jones said. “Hell, even the South for the Civil War had the good sense to defect and secede before going against the Constitution.”
America is in “unparalleled, unprecedented times” and veterans must step up to lead the country out the quagmire, Jones said.
Ball asked the panel to discuss the much-watched North Carolina Supreme Court race between Republican Jefferson Griffin and Allison Riggs, a Democrat. The outcome of the closely contested race wasn’t resolved until this month after nearly six months. Griffin conceded after a federal judge ordered the state to certify Riggs’ election victory.
Military and overseas votes were at the center of the election dispute. Griffin challenged the validity of some military and overseas absentee ballots in the 2024 contest.
“To protect military and veterans’ families’ votes, really has to come from the voters, really has to come from political pressure,” said Sean Wright, a former Army medic. “We have to make it, as voters, unacceptable to take away the right to vote.”
Rep. Terry Brown (D-Mecklenburg) said men and women who serve overseas have expectations that they will be treated with a certain amount of respect.
“This election really showed how little the powers that be cared about that,” Brown said. “I like to think about it in terms of people that talk a good game, but they don’t back it up.”
Brown said Americans can’t afford to take a day off defending democracy.
“We have to make sure that’s it’s not just doing election season, it’s not just when there are votes on the line, it’s not just when a bad thing happens,” Brown said. “It’s all the time that we’re making sure that y’all are laser-focused on protecting against threats to our democracy.”
Jay Carey, leader of Resist & Persist, a nonpartisan veterans advocacy organization, said the challenge to the state Supreme Court election was a test by the GOP to determine how much the judicial system and voters could stomach.
Carey, who garnered national attention after he was escorted out of U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards’ townhall meeting in Asheville in March, said there will be more challenges to valid election victories.
“They’re [the challenges] are going to get more and more ridiculous,” Carey said. “It’s going to tie up time and waste more money Like I said, it was a test. They just wanted to see what they could do.”
The discussion turned to talk of Trump’s removing the military’s Judge Advocate Generals (JAG) and replacing them with what some panelists said are loyalists to the administration. JAGs advise commanders on legal matters and oversee the military judicial system.
Jones said the legal protections provided by JAGs are critical to defending the nation against internal threats he fears are coming from the Trump administration.
“I can’t stress the panic level enough on this,” Jones said. “All of the dominoes are falling. To those of us paying attention, it’s blatantly obvious. Any time there’s a voice of dissent, they shut it down.”
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