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After 10 years of active duty in the U.S. Army, Daniel Sandecki last year landed what he felt was a dream job in Palo Alto.
Following a training program and a seven-month hiring process, Sandecki joined the VA Palo Alto Health Care System in the role of an emergency management specialist, which required him to ensure that there is continuity of care and that business operations would proceed smoothly even in the face of disasters like forest fires, earthquakes and power outages, he said.
But on Feb. 13, it looked like the dream job was coming to an abrupt end after just four months. Sandecki was at the end of his shift, working with his supervisor to complete his final tasks for the day when he received an email from the Office of Personnel Management, telling him he would be immediately terminated, he said.
“The email said it was for performance-related issues, which was not factual,” he said.
Sandecki was one of 10 employees of the Palo Alto VA – and 2,400 throughout the national VA system – who lost their jobs in February as part of the Trump Administration’s effort to cut the federal workforce, according to U.S. Rep. Sam Liccardo, whose 16th District includes Palo Alto. Many of these cuts were orchestrated by the Department of Government Efficiency, the advisory body led by Elon Musk that has been infiltrating – and in some cases gutting – federal agencies. The group has already dismantled much of the U.S. Agency for International Development and has been involved in efforts to fire thousands of probationary employees in various federal departments, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Forest Service.
On Tuesday, Sandecki joined Liccardo in the nation’s capital to watch Donald Trump address the Joint Session of Congress. A key goal, Liccardo said, was to force the president to see someone – in this case an Army veteran who was injured in the line of duty – who was directly impacted by Trump’s policies. The firing, he said, was an example of White House chaos.
“This is just reflective of what we have right now running this country at DOGE,” Liccardo said. “A bunch of 22-year-old reckless rookies, I’m guessing who’ve never served our country, or seen a war or served anyone in a hospital who is disabled and needs care.
“Yet they are making decisions for a system that has 40,000 vacancies, serving veterans — and not serving them well enough because of all these vacancies — and laying off thousands more,” he said.
Sandecki’s story took another turn on March 4, shortly after Liccardo announced on Instagram that the veteran would be his guest for the Trump address. Less than two hours after the announcement, Sandecki was alerted by the OMB that his termination was being rescinded and that he would have his job back. Liccardo said that he was relieved to see this change return to his post, but noted in a statement that “we will not quickly forget how recklessly he was fired.”
In a statement, Liccardo characterized the DOGE actions as “amateur hour at the White House.”
“By rescinding Daniel’s termination, DOGE admits that he should never have been fired in the first place. This isn’t saving any money—it’s chaos,” Liccardo said.
Some Democrats in Congress opted not to attend Trump’s address, in some cases opting to instead host town hall meetings or virtual discussions. Liccardo said he felt it was important for him to attend the address and to bring Sandecki to the event.
“Donald Trump will know from those of us who are in the chamber, the steely reserve we have to stop him and all of his excesses in power,” Liccardo said.
Sandecki had his own objective in attending the address: to combat misconceptions about federal workers.
“There’s a misconception about government employees that they’re low-skilled or underdeveloped or just push papers and sit around doing nothing and not do a lot,” he said. “I’m here to dispel that myth. Some government employees are the best in their field at what they do, regardless of what field they work in.”
