‘A slap on the face': Orlando Marine vet among thousands to lose jobs in federal employee purge
A U.S. Marine veteran who served in the Iraq War, he worked for a stretch at NASA and then in January took a job in the Internal Revenue Service's Orlando office. The federal government — which encouraged veterans to apply — offered a stable, familiar workplace and one that counted his four years of military service toward retirement benefits.
Not any more. Jackson, 40, of Orlando, this week found himself among the estimated 30,000 federal employees to suddenly lose their jobs amid the Trump administration's mass firings across swaths of federal agencies.
'It has pulled the carpet out from underneath a lot of people,' Jackson said.
Now Jackson, a married homeowner, is unexpectedly worried about his finances and wondering why his work history, which also included a stint as an veterans' advocate lobbying for legislation to benefit military retirees, has been suddenly devalued.
'This is a slap on the face when I've spent my life serving in government or working for the public interest,' he said.
Billionaire Elon Musk and the ad hoc group 'DOGE' have been targeting new, probationary hires like Jackson for termination across the board since President Donald Trump returned to office last month.
When Jackson learned a fellow recent hire, a disabled Army veteran, had been fired via email, he was still working at the IRS but figured his survival may have just been an oversight. He was right.
''Hey, who's Doug Jackson?'' his supervisor was asked by her superiors, he said. 'I was just so new, I wasn't on some sort of roster that they used to compile all the probationary hires.'
His work at the agency 'is no longer in the public interest,' a letter he received this week stated.
'It's completely impersonal,' said Jackson. 'It's not based off of merit or someone's credentials or even a performance report. It's just, 'Oh, you're probationary, or you're a new hire. Okay, you're gone.''
The layoffs will leave federal agencies weaker, Jackson said. 'It will certainly make their recruitment efforts more difficult, retention efforts more difficult, and just overall create instability,' he said. 'Which, I think, is all by design.'
The Trump administration — claiming it was seeking to end waste and fraud — has terminated employees in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Park Service, and the Weather Service, among many others. In addition, another 75,000 federal employees took what have been described as 'buyouts,' the legal status of which remains unclear.
A Thursday court injunction put a temporary restraining order on the Office and Management and Budget, finding its firing of probationary employees illegal, but the action does not affect Jackson and IRS employees, he said.
The mass layoffs appear to be just beginning. Russell Vought, the OMB director, told agencies to prepare for an additional 'large-scale reduction in force' by March 13. Vought has called federal employees 'villains' who should be 'in trauma.'
But the American public does not share those views. More than half said that Musk was cutting 'useful programs' and only 38% approved of the job he was doing, according to a YouGov poll released this week. DOGE was also the most disliked federal office in the survey, with 37% of Americans saying they wanted the group reduced or eliminated, up from 34% last week.
'They're playing with fire now,' said Aubrey Jewett, a professor of political science at the University of Central Florida. 'I don't think most Americans who voted for Trump were expecting large, indiscriminate cuts to people's jobs as part of the bargain for voting for him.'
'Venal depravity': Florida Dems spotlight people at risk in GOP budget cuts
Such mass firings, Jewett added, seem 'really disrespectful' and could also hurt the economy.
The number of Americans applying for jobless benefits last week jumped to 242,000, the highest in three months.
'That is all a potential problem for the president,' Jewett added.
Florida ranks fifth among the 50 states for the largest number of civilian federal employees, according to the Congressional Research Service, with more than 94,000 as of March 2024. More than 26,000 of those employees live in and around Orlando.
The districts with the largest number of those employees are largely represented by Republicans in Congress. That includes more than 12,000 in Districts 7 and 11, held by Republican representatives Cory Mills and Dan Webster.
Veterans make up nearly 30% of all civilian federal employees. Mills, who served in the 82nd Army Airborne in Iraq and Afghanistan, did not return a request for comment about the layoffs left with his office.
Jackson said the firings are creating a 'disproportionate' impact among his fellow former servicemembers.
An Alabama native, Jackson said much of the country seems unaware of how federal government operations impact their lives.
'I've spoken to friends and even family who don't quite understand the work that I've been doing for the last several years,' he said. 'They're looking from the outside and just agreeing. 'Okay, yep, the budget is bloated. Government has gotten too big. We need to make some bold moves'.'
Continuing to gut the federal workforce, he said, will have a 'negligible, almost immeasurable effect' on the overall budget, as salaries make up only about 4% of the total.
After leaving the military, Jackson pursued a master's degree at Rollins College. As a part of the Pathways program, which allows the government to recruit talent among those still pursuing degrees, Jackson worked in communications for NASA.
With no permanent position available once he graduated, he worked as a government contractor for two years before beginning the months-long process of getting hired at the IRS.
He was assigned to the downtown Orlando office, though his internal communications team mostly worked remotely. His team's duties included speechwriting for executives and writing guidance to employees.
'The IRS already struggles with public favor,' he said. 'When it's being gutted, it's hard to imagine that their capabilities won't be impacted.'
Now he is anxious to find a new job quickly. 'I'm not really looking at the federal government,' Jackson said. 'That would be my preference, but I'm looking towards the private sector.'
He also plans to write about his experiences and share that work publicly, hoping to educate others.
'I'm trying to think of ways that I can contribute, in a small way, to explain to people who don't understand that there are specific consequences to what's happening,' he said. 'Despite people's eagerness to see a more efficient federal government, this isn't the way to do it. And it's hurting people.'
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