Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Year : 2, Issue: 28
by Mason Gersh
I’m a Kentuckian just like you. I grew up in Jefferson County Public Schools. I swam with (and probably lost against) your kids at the neighborhood swim meet. I baked you rock-hard brownies you pretended to enjoy at the Derby party. I’m your neighbor, your community member and – in many cases – your friend.
Driven by the Kentucky values of compassion and patriotism on which I was raised, I’ve proudly served my country at the U.S. Agency for International Development for more than five years, working to deliver lifesaving humanitarian aid across the world on behalf of the American people.
That is, until last week, when my entire team and I were fired without cause.
I’m a Kentuckian just like you. I grew up in Jefferson County Public Schools. I swam with (and probably lost against) your kids at the neighborhood swim meet. I baked you rock-hard brownies you pretended to enjoy at the Derby party. I’m your neighbor, your community member and – in many cases – your friend.
Driven by the Kentucky values of compassion and patriotism on which I was raised, I’ve proudly served my country at the U.S. Agency for International Development for more than five years, working to deliver lifesaving humanitarian aid across the world on behalf of the American people.
That is, until last week, when my entire team and I were fired without cause.
My most recent deployment with the agency was to the Middle East, where I served on USAID’s team of specialized humanitarian experts responding to Yemen’s brutal, 10-year civil war. I worked long hours alongside Americans who have devoted their lives to supporting people trapped in conflict and disaster – a far cry from the “wasteful” and “unproductive” jobs Elon Musk claims to be cutting.
Together, we delivered emergency food aid from American farmers and supported malnutrition treatment centers for hundreds of thousands of children and pregnant women at risk of starvation.
Our programs provided essential health care, clean drinking water and shelter to people living in truly unimaginable circumstances – people for whom this aid often meant the difference between life and death.
Musk and DOGE have destroyed USAID’s lifesaving programs
This past month, Musk and his DOGE staff have destroyed these programs, carelessly jeopardizing millions of lives and taking a wrecking ball to American jobs, businesses and interests around the world.
The very children my co-workers and I were supporting are now being turned away from nutrition treatment centers from Yemen to Gaza to Sudan, left to starve in wars they did not choose. The only source of clean water for communities displaced from their homes has been cut off. And, as you read this, American food aid is rotting in ports just miles away from starving civilians, wasting your tax dollars that Musk claims to be saving.
The world’s richest man has taken food directly out of the mouths of starving children. It’s a truth that’s hard to bear not only for myself, but I imagine for any American – any Kentuckian – who learns of the scale of destruction that Musk and DOGE have caused.
My heart is broken in more ways than I thought possible, especially when I stop to consider that DOGE’s actions seem to be driven by nothing more than a need to feel powerful at the expense of the world’s most vulnerable.
1% of US budget goes to foreign aid
To justify USAID’s destruction, Musk and his allies have called its programming wasteful, citing a need to rein in excess spending. But foreign aid accounts for only about 1% of the federal budget.
At USAID’s humanitarian bureau, it is through this funding that I responded alongside our military to the Haiti earthquake in 2021, to historic floods in Pakistan in 2022 and to the invasion of Ukraine, saving lives on behalf of the U.S. government and promoting goodwill toward our country.
While saving innocent lives is simply the right thing to do, USAID programs also have tremendous benefits for Americans here at home.
If you care about our economy, USAID has tens of billions of dollars in partnerships with American businesses, including $2 billion in contracts with American farmers – the majority of which have now been canceled.
If you care about migration, USAID programs in Central and South America help people meet essential needs and build livelihoods in their own communities, preventing irregular migration toward our borders.
And if you’re a proud Christian, USAID partners with Christian organizations around the world such as Catholic Relief Services to save lives and reduce needless suffering through programs that have now been stopped in their tracks.
Musk thinks you will turn a blind eye to human suffering
Why, then, have Musk and DOGE started their dismantling of the federal government at USAID, an institution that shows the best of America to the world? Because they think you won’t care.
They think that, even in light of the millions of lives that will be lost if this damage is not undone, you will turn a blind eye to human suffering if it doesn’t affect you directly.
Musk and DOGE have even deleted USAID’s website in an attempt to hide the accomplishments of the agency’s lifesaving work. But they couldn’t delete everything, and evidence of our work remains. I leave it to you to look at and judge our work for yourself.
Because I know that Kentuckians are better than that. I know we’re a state where hospitality and caring about one another matters. We’re brave and independent thinkers, and we’re not afraid to act in the face of injustice.
So now, at this point of no return, I ask that you stand with me and my colleagues in this fight and let your voice be heard. Because when USAID loses, we all lose.
Author Mason Gersh is a humanitarian aid worker from Louisville, Kentucky
