This opinion was contributed after our editorial deadline had passed, we included here in the Recreation section.

The United States of America is being dismantled in plain sight. The new administration has authorized unelected, sometimes even unknown, persons to have access to the sensitive personal information of our citizens and our monetary systems. In addition, they have been allowed to close down entire government agencies and to fire tens of thousands of public servants. This is happening with no regard to the rule of law.

If you think that all of this affects only bureaucrats snoozing at their computers in Washington D.C., think again. It has affected all government workers in every state. Those who have not been terminated have been traumatized. Funds for farmers, education programs, and infrastructure projects have been frozen. Court orders that were issued to release those funds have been only haphazardly obeyed, sometimes ignored. All of the people who were fired are in a haze of disbelief. Our government is silent on their fate. They have no recourse, no information.

It has been stated that the workers who have been fired are new hires early in their service. This is a lie—one of a blizzard of lies that have been communicated. Some workers who were let go have many years of service. They were promoted into positions that have automatic periods of “probation.” In many departments, there are few employees left to do the work that was already backlogged because of short-staffing.

I have been fortunate to have met many of the people who work for the Custer-Gallatin National Forest in trails and recreation. At least seventeen of them in the Bozeman and Livingston Districts have been fired. There is almost no one left other than office staff. Very few to do all of the trail and campground maintenance work of around one million acres of forest and wilderness.

These trail crews are not your typical government workers. Their computer is a six-foot crosscut saw. Their desk is a backpack. Their home for eight-day hitches all summer is a nylon tent. It rains a lot in the mountains when it is not snowing. This does not stop the work. Much of their wages are paid by fees charged in the campgrounds that they maintain and the rental cabins that they clean and chop wood for. No one does this job for the money. Some are interns who can no longer work because their supervisors have been fired. They all do this work because they believe in it. They work to keep the public safe and comfortable as they camp, ride, hike, hunt and fish in these mountains.

We have been told that firefighters will not be laid off. Yet the funds for the fire prevention projects have been cut. The trail crews participate in these efforts. They patrol the forest, extinguish abandoned campfires, thin wooded areas. They are also the trained backup firefighters. The trail crews are now gone. This endangers the firefighters who supposedly retain their jobs. The people making these decisions may not be able to find Montana on the map, let alone know anything about what goes on in our state.

It seems possible, even likely. that our nearby forests, trails, and wilderness areas will have to be locked up this summer. There is simply no way to guarantee public safety on trails, bridges, roads, or in camps without the daily work that these crews accomplish. Millions of dollars spent on recreation in our public forests will be lost. There will be no savings or efficiency in this absurd drama. Court cases will drag on. Lives are already ruined.

The Forest Service is a special organization. It consists of a brother-and sisterhood of dedicated workers who believe strongly in their mission to manage our public lands. Right now, all of them are grieving. Those who are left are wondering if their comrades who are missing are okay. They are not okay.

None of the descriptions of this travesty have yet covered how this was done. There were no evaluations. There were no explanations. There was no notice and apparently no severance. These folks signed government employment contracts in good faith. The government signed them also, and has willfully and unlawfully broken these contracts. It is apparent that we can no longer trust our federal government. In the last 50 years the population of the U.S. has increased 68%. The federal workforce is smaller now than it was 50 years ago.

Government employees are no different than any of us. They have families, rent, car payments, school loans, insurance obligations. There has been no consideration of any of this.

This has already affected all of us. If they have not come for you yet, there is no particular hurry. They have at least four years to accomplish their domestic terrorism. Wake up people. Contact your congressional representatives if you have concerns.