Veterans and Working Class Families Deserve Food Not Rampant Militarization: Common Defense Condemns National Guard Expansion While SNAP Cuts Loom
Washington, DC — Common Defense, a national grassroots organization of veterans and military families, condemns yesterday’s Pentagon's announcement to deploy more than 23,000 troops as "quick reaction forces" for civil unrest operations in American cities. This move by the Trump administration represents a dangerous escalation of military presence on U.S. soil at the precise moment when the administration is denying the continuation of vital food assistance to millions of working families, including over 1.2 million veterans.
Jose Vasquez, U.S. Army veteran and Executive Director of Common Defense, released the following statement:
"Countless veterans stood up for our country while in uniform. Now, the current administration is turning its back on them and their families once again. First, it was slashing adequate staffing needed to support the VA healthcare system; now it’s cutting off funds that provide food assistance not only to veterans, but also to children and families nationwide.
“For nearly every one of the 23,000 troops the administration is readying to police American streets for a manufactured crisis there are more 20,000 active-duty service members who will lose SNAP benefits for their households tomorrow. The real crisis is the denial of food assistance to these active-duty families, 1.2 million veterans, and countless working families. If troops, veterans, and innocent children going hungry just weeks before Thanksgiving don’t qualify as an emergency, nothing does.
“This isn’t about national security; it’s about priorities—and this administration’s priorities appear entirely backwards. Preparing to deploy tens of thousands of troops while refusing to keep SNAP flowing to millions of Americans is the definition of misplaced priorities. You can’t simultaneously claim to support veteran households and working-class families while denying needed food assistance and wasting taxpayer dollars expanding military occupation into many of their cities and communities.”
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Common Defense Civic Engagement (501c4) (CDCE) is a grassroots, veteran-led organization that was founded in 2016. We empower veterans to stand up for our communities against the rising tide of racism, hate, and violence, to organize against the entrenched powers that have rigged our economy, and to champion an equitable and representative democracy, where “liberty and justice” truly is for all. For too long, politicians from both political parties have attempted to use veterans as unwilling political props, and Common Defense serves as a home for veterans to organize and speak for themselves and support the candidates who truly share our values.