I work for a DoD agency and it's a pretty good job. The benefits are good, and the pay isn't terrible either.
Regarding the firing thing, it is harder to get rid of federal employees for most things. There's a few things they can throw you out for instantly, like failing a drug test, but most of the time they have to give you about 6 months to improve your performance.
Keep in mind Congress has been trying to take steps to make it easier to fire us, and have been trying to make our retirement benefits not as good as they have been. For example, there's been talk about them changing our retirement annuities to use the average of our last 5 years of service instead of the last 3 like it has been. That will reduce most people's annuity by a little, but it's not like it will break the bank for you. Also, the annual raises have been pretty low (1 or 2%) the 3 years I've been here.
Besides the potential of Congress making the job a little less sweet, I'd say it's worth it. The TSP is a great 401K with low fees, and there's a lot of different healthcare plans available to you. Also, if you work 10 years as a civil servant you can get your federal college loans forgiven if you're still paying on them.
I have read about this. I guess it's not necessarily a bad thing if it'll help get rid of the bad apples.
This is for my wife btw. Her current place of employment is pretty good so she has a lot to lose if she were to go somewhere that ended up being less than desirable.
I'm not really sure where Trump lies with the VA, but what would happen if there were budget cuts for that specific department? Aside from the potential layoffs, can they actually cut your pay if that were to happen? ---