Despite our grief and trauma, many of us still want to return to the State Department or another federal agency. But the path back does not exist.

My father was a police officer and my grandfather was a firefighter — public service is a big part of my family’s identity. That’s why I moved to Washington, D.C., in 2013 to work for the State Department.

Over 12 years, I rose through the ranks from an unpaid intern to one of the country’s top counterterrorism experts. Despite my contributions to our national security, Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) determined that I was expendable.

It has now been a year since I received an email from Human Resources at the State Department terminating my job.

The message came as no surprise. After months of court injunctions, the Supreme Court had cleared the way for the Trump administration to proceed with a reduction in force of federal employees across the executive branch. Rumors spread the evening before that the axe would fall on Friday, July 11, 2025, ending the careers of over 1,300 domestic employees implementing U.S. foreign policy at the State Department. Leadership at the Bureau of Counterterrorism, where I had worked for my final nine years, had already told us our positions would be eliminated.

I was working from home when the message arrived at 11:12 a.m. I was struck by the email’s banality. All 1,300-plus recipients received the same “Dear Colleague” letter, with no acknowledgment from Secretary of State Marco Rubio or any other senior leader of our work, our years of public service, or the upheaval it would cause our families.

I was a journalist and a high school teacher before I joined the State Department in 2013 as a Presidential Management Fellow, one of just 200 selected from 13,000 applicants that cycle. I wanted to protect our country from another 9/11-scale terrorist attack. I understood the threats facing our country and assumed no administration, Republican or Democrat, would willingly diminish America’s ability to confront them.

But no previous administration had empowered an outside body like DOGE to dismantle programs and gut decades of expertise. Instead of reducing the workforce gradually through attrition and early-retirement incentives, the administration terminated entire offices at once, regardless of individual performance.

In the year since my firing, I have experienced the full spectrum of emotions. Moments of excitement — interviews on “The Daily Show” and NPR — give way to anxiety and depression. Losing a professional identity is never easy, and watching former colleagues struggle to rebuild their lives is equally painful. Many, including myself, have applied for hundreds of jobs without a single offer. Some took service industry work after their unemployment checks ran out.

Despite our grief and trauma, many of us still want to return to the State Department or another federal agency. But the path back does not exist. Most job postings now restrict applicants to “internal” only, bypassing a mechanism that would allow the Department to rehire fully vetted former employees at a lower cost to taxpayers. And other federal agencies are reluctant to hire people whom the administration previously fired. This is why we believe our firing was punitive, not a cost-saving measure.

We are working with our local American Federation of Government Employees chapter to pursue legal remedies for reinstatement and urging Congress to pass legislation restoring our positions. The years of expertise that walked out the doors of the State Department and other executive branch agencies cannot be replaced by contractors, political appointees or artificial intelligence. Working for the federal government requires experts with deep institutional knowledge who will be there regardless of the outcome of future presidential elections.

I left my hometown believing that public service was one of the highest callings an American could pursue. A year later, I still believe that. Washington just doesn’t seem to agree.

Michael Duffin spent 12 years at the U.S. Department of State, most recently in the Bureau of Counterterrorism’s Office of Countering Violent Extremism, before being terminated in the July 2025 reduction in force. He is a Democratic candidate for Virginia’s 8th Congressional District.

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