Pentagon Prepares To Fire Thousands Of Civilian Employees In Dramatic Culling

The Pentagon is planning to fire 5,400 civilian employees starting next week as it seeks to eliminate 8 percent of its civilian workforce, the department announced Friday.

The sweeping cuts will gut civilians who have only been employed for one or two years and are still considered “probationary,” meaning the terminations are not based on performance.

“It is simply not in the public interest to retain individuals whose contributions are not mission critical,” Darin Selnick, acting Defense undersecretary for personnel and readiness, said in a statement.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 250,000 Pentagon civilians, called the move “a slap in the face to veterans and military families everywhere that will not soon be forgotten.”

About 50,000 probationary employees work across the Defense Department, all of whom are at risk of termination. About 46 percent of all civilians employed by the military are veterans.

Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed, in anticipation of the move, raised alarms this week about political interference in the military.

"It is going to profoundly, and unfortunately, reshape the military into a political tool of the president," the Rhode Island Democrat said. "You get a military force that will tell the president whatever he wants to hear. Disaster soon follows."