A first wave of firings has begun in the Department of Defense as President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk continue to terminate federal employees and slash agencies.

Military.com has learned that civilian workers in at least four organizations -- the Defense Health Agency, Defense Logistics Agency, the Navy^[1] and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences -- have already been told they are fired.

But officials in the office of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, when contacted by Military.com about how many people were fired and at what agencies, didn't have any answers. A spokesperson for the secretary's office instead referred questions "to each agency to speak about their workforce."

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A Defense Health Agency employee whose work supports the global health of America's fighting forces received a pink slip Monday, less than a month before her employment status with the federal government was slated to become permanent.

The firing, along with an unknown number of others at the Defense Department, occurred this week despite a federal judge's ruling Feb. 28 that the dismissals, originally ordered by the White House's Office of Personnel Management, were likely unlawful.

The Pentagon announced Feb. 21 that it planned to fire 5,400 probationary civilian workers in an initial effort to reduce its federal workforce by 5% to 8%, which could ultimately mean tens of thousands of workers will lose their jobs. The purge was to begin the following week but did not appear to get underway until Monday.

The Defense Department has not said how many people have been let go so far, but at least 100 from the Defense Logistics Agency and dozens at the Defense Health Agency have lost their jobs.

A DoD spokesman referred questions about firings to individual agencies within the department. The Defense Health Agency referred questions back to the DoD, while the Defense Logistics Agency said it fired some of its probationary workers.

The public and Congress have been largely kept in the dark as thousands of workers across the federal government have been terminated amid Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency -- a team of his personal assistants -- review, which entails plugging into federal systems and eliminating people and programs deemed inefficient.

A defense official who was granted anonymity to speak more candidly told Military.com that the DLA's layoffs consisted of less than 100 people out of a 25,000-person workforce and just a small fraction of the overall planned total of 5,400 probationary employees announced by Pentagon leadership.

Officials with the Navy, meanwhile, told Military.com that data on its firings isn't readily available.

The federal government has not released any data on the number of employees who have been terminated or the types of jobs they held. The federal workforce has 200,000 probationary workers, and 75,000 employees accepted deferred resignation offers from the executive branch, according to The Associated Press.

The DHA employee, who requested anonymity out of hope that she may be reinstated, said she tracked the news about federal firings elsewhere, had taken steps to comply with Trump's executive order ending remote work, and hoped to make it to the end of the month when her probationary period expired.

"I love my job. I really, really believe in the mission that we have, what we do in our day-to-day," said the worker, who added that she had received two performance awards in her 11 months at the DHA.

According to the employee, she was given less than 10 minutes to attend a Microsoft Teams meeting Monday with her supervisor. When she logged on, she was among more than 30 other DoD employees told they were being let go, ostensibly for "performance issues."

Most of the correspondence and messaging in the recent firings of probationary federal workers, which began early last month, contained boilerplate language noting poor performance.

"Gosh, it was insanely impersonal. We were not allowed the opportunity to ask questions, nothing. It was basically, 'Here it is. You have questions? Ask your supervisors,' who were also in the dark, by the way," she said.

The firings have triggered lawsuits claiming they are unlawful. As the litigation winds through the courts, the Office of Personnel Management on Tuesday published a revision to its termination guidance saying it is not instructing other federal agencies to dismiss probationary employees.

"Please note that, by this memorandum, OPM is not directing agencies to take any specific performance-based actions regarding probationary employees," the revision states. "Agencies have ultimate decision-making authority over, and responsibility for, such personnel actions."

Darin Selnick, a Trump adviser who is performing the duties of secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, issued a memo Monday directing that the firings of probationary employees begin.

He said the dismissals would be of employees "whose contributions are not mission-critical."

The Trump administration argues that the cuts are needed to reduce the size of the federal government and slash the national debt, which now totals more than $36 trillion.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Monday that the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, headed by Musk recently was granted access^[3] to the Pentagon and made "initial findings" that "will probably save $80 million in wasteful spending," although Parnell did not provide a listing of the programs and dismissals that would account for the full $80 million.

The turmoil already is disrupting the lives of U.S. service members and their families. A memo sent to troops^[4] at Hill Air Force Base^[5] in Utah said child development center workers who voluntarily took a deferred resignation from the administration or were probationary were being targeted for firings.

The dismissals are also likely to disproportionately hit military spouses^[6] and veterans who receive preferential hiring status for federal jobs. Roughly 27% of military spouses who have jobs work for federal, state or local governments, and veterans make up one-third of the federal workforce.

Veterans groups are pushing back at the firings, calling them indiscriminate and asking the Trump administration to protect veteran employment^[7].

"It has become clearer that the veteran community has been hit hard as probationary federal jobs are being axed across the country," VFW National Commander Al Lipphardt said. "These are employees who have been serving the American people for years, in uniform and in civil service, and at least some of whom have been or are being caught by a formality in administrative statuses."

But on Tuesday, the White House dismissed concerns about veterans being disproportionately affected by the firings.

White House adviser Alina Habba told reporters Trump cares about veterans, but she also said he has a responsibility to "use taxpayer dollars to pay people that actually work."

"We are going to care for them in the right way, but perhaps they're not fit to have a job at this moment, or not willing to come to work," Habba told reporters in a brief conversation on the White House lawn. "I wouldn't take money from you and pay somebody and say, 'Sorry, you know, they're not going to come to work.' It's just not acceptable."

Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, have seized on the firings of veterans as part of their political messaging.

At Trump's address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, several Democrats invited fired veterans as their guests. For example, one of the guests of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was Alissa Ellman, whom he described as a disabled veteran who served in Afghanistan and was fired from her job at the Buffalo, New York, VA as part of the department's 2,400 probationary worker firings.

Earlier in the day Tuesday, Senate Veterans Affairs Committee ranking member Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., also tried to force a vote on the Senate floor on a nonbinding resolution that would have condemned firings at the VA and put the Senate on record as saying all fired employees should be rehired.

The resolution's passage was blocked by Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jerry Moran, R-Kan., who argued the measure was designed to be divisive.

"Approving this resolution drives a wedge between this body, this Senate, this Congress and the executive branch, and I don't see how that helps veterans," Moran said. "I commit today to all my colleagues to work with them to make certain the VA retains an effective workforce that can deliver our promises to veterans."

The Defense Health Agency employee who received notice Monday said she hopes she will be reinstated, given that the work her office performs is important to the wellness of warfighters and they already were understaffed.

"Every person I work with, not only are they well educated -- there's nobody I work with [who] has less than a master's degree -- they're all driven, they're goal-oriented, they all believe in the mission. We work our tails off, and many of us put in lots of overtime, just because we're running lean and that's what it takes to make sure that the mission doesn't fail," she said.

Related: Trump's Orders Curbing Government Spending Dwindle Attendance at Air Force Conference^[8]

The Pentagon inspector general has scrapped plans to investigate the military's training for identifying and countering extremism in the ranks -- saying the project does not align with President Donald Trump's executive orders, according to a memo obtained by Military.com.

The watchdog's directive, issued Feb. 25, abruptly halted an ongoing assessment of how military branches implement counter-extremism training, particularly efforts targeting radical organizations, white nationalist groups and militias such as the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and the Ku Klux Klan.

The decision to drop the review is the latest shift of Pentagon policy under Trump, who fired Defense Department Inspector General Robert Storch^[1] without providing 30 days' notice to Congress as required by law. The president also pardoned convicted Oath Keepers and Proud Boys members^[2] who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

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Storch, along with the Department of Veterans Affairs^[4] inspector general and the inspectors general for six other agencies fired by Trump just days into his term, filed a lawsuit in February calling the terminations illegal^[5]. The inspectors general are independent and tasked with identifying waste, fraud and abuse at federal agencies.

The IG memo also eliminates an ongoing review -- that produced a draft report in January -- of the Air Force^[6]'s recruitment^[7] and retention programs aimed at boosting the number of female pilots, which has been met with sharp criticism from military watchdogs and advocacy groups.

The memo was signed by Brett Mansfield, deputy inspector general for audit, and Michael Roark, deputy inspector general for evaluations. The push to root out extremism was started under Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

The watchdog office connected the decisions to the larger push by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to eliminate programs, policies and content -- including photos and social media posts -- that recognize women and troops with minority backgrounds. The Trump administration has banned and censored anything it deems connected to "diversity, equity and inclusion," or DEI.

"Prohibited activity includes supremacist, extremist, and criminal gang doctrine, ideology and fall under the DEI umbrella," Mollie Halpern, a spokesperson for the Pentagon's inspector general office, said in a statement.

Eliminating recognition and references to diversity in the military has been a defining priority of Hegseth's early tenure, though it was unclear how scaling back examinations of potential insider national security threats is related to "diversity, equity and inclusion."

The Pentagon's struggle to define extremism in the ranks has long complicated efforts to combat it.

Research suggests troops and veterans are not inherently more susceptible to radicalization, but their military training and credibility make them high-value recruits for extremist groups, a Military.com investigation found^[8].

Experts who track domestic extremism have warned for years about a spike in activity and the potential for violence. Last month, Brandon Russell, a former National Guardsman^[9] and white supremacist group leader, was found guilty of plotting to sabotage^[10] Baltimore's electrical grid.

Two former Marines were sentenced in July for a neo-Nazi plot to attack the electric grid^[11] in the northwestern U.S., and attempted to build an arsenal of firearms and explosives to do it.

But Hegseth and other Republicans have claimed the concerns over extremism are politicized and exaggerated.

"Things like focusing on extremism have created a climate inside our ranks that feel political," Hegseth said at his confirmation hearing. "Those are the types of things that are going to change."

The Pentagon started taking extremism more seriously as a potential insider threat as a response to the Jan. 6 insurrection in which about 200 veterans and some service members were a part of the mob that ransacked the Capitol in an effort to keep Trump in power after he lost the election.

Last summer, Army^[12] officials made it much easier to hold soldiers accountable for radical behavior, as previous rules were relatively subjective and only outright forbade soldiers from partaking in activity but did not have a clear policy on hate speech itself.

The new guidance, which has yet to be formally rescinded, granted commanders the authority to discipline troops for liking and sharing content online related to extremist causes, as well as displaying flags or symbols.

Related: Trading on Patriotism: How Extremist Groups Target and Radicalize Veterans^[13]

AURORA, Colo. -- Air Force^[1] Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin wanted to make it clear: The troops that he oversees will do whatever President Donald Trump wants them to, and they'll be ready for it.

"That is what airpower, anytime, anywhere means. It's not just an aspiration. It's a promise we have to uphold for America," Allvin said during his keynote speech Monday evening at the Air and Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium in Colorado. "We have to sustain and maintain the ability to go anytime, anywhere in the densest threat environment and put 'warheads on foreheads' anywhere the president might want."

It wasn't just the Air Force. Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force^[2]'s top leader, made it clear during his keynote speech that same evening that Guardians are also "warfighters" who must be ready for conflict, and the service must go on the offensive to achieve "space superiority" against the nation's adversaries.

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"That's what we signed up for ... the challenge, the call to duty," Saltzman said during his speech. "That's what it means to live and work in the greatest military the world has ever seen ... to be warfighters, regardless of the uniform we wear or the job we hold."

This is one of the first major forums the two service leaders -- both of whom were spared from Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's purge last month of top military leaders -- have had since the new administration was sworn in.

Both made a clear embrace of the Pentagon's new priority to "revive the warrior ethos," as Hegseth put in his initial message to the services in January. But delivering on that by providing new technology and weapons for Trump's national security priorities is also at the mercy of looming defense cuts.

Todd Harrison, a defense budgeting expert at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, told Military.com in an interview that the timing of Allvin and Saltzman's comments in the wake of the firings is notable. Trump and Hegseth fired the Air Force general serving as the Joint Chiefs chairman, the Navy^[4]'s chief of naval operations, and the Air Force vice chief on Feb. 21 without explanation.

"You can't help but think that the firing of the generals a few weeks ago has led to some of the change in rhetoric and behavior from the remaining service chiefs," Harrison said. "They are trying to get in line with the administration's new priorities and its new rhetoric in order to save their jobs."

Allvin did not participate in a roundtable with reporters, a notable absence from what is typically one of the few times where journalists can ask the service's top brass about the most pressing issues.

Notably, as the Department of the Air Force waits for its secretary nominee to be confirmed, all of the service's ambitious reorganization efforts focused on competing with China, many of which were endorsed and pushed by Allvin, have been paused by Hegseth until new leadership can approve them.

A defense official spoke to Military.com on condition of anonymity to discuss Allvin's focus on "lethality," as well as his response to the pause of the reorganization efforts.

"Readiness and lethality are at the core of both the USAF's efforts to realign to the threat environment and the new administration's priorities," the defense official said. "That is why everyone in [the] Air Force is fully onboard and welcomes the incoming civilian leadership team reviewing not only the 'why' behind the warfighters and readiness initiatives, but also the considerable progress made to date."

Saltzman did speak with reporters. When pressed by Military.com on what led to the change in tone in his speech and the call for the Space Force to use means such as orbital warfare, electromagnetic warfare and counterspace operations, the four-star general said it was a natural progression for the service.

"It's more of a maturation of the role and the responsibilities that a new service has and just developing the vocabulary, developing the doctrine, operational concepts, and now the equipment and the training," Saltzman said during the media roundtable. "It is just part of the process, I feel like."

Both the Allvin and Saltzman keynote addresses focused on getting each service more modern and technologically advanced weapons and aircraft to carry out their missions -- a tall order as Hegseth has directed each service to offer up 8% of potential cuts in order to fund Trump's national defense priorities.

"In this dangerous and dynamic time, I want to give the president as many options as I can," Allvin said during his speech. "So that means modernization."

Related: Trump's Orders Curbing Government Spending Dwindle Attendance at Air Force Conference^[5]