WASHINGTON (7News) — Amid continuing federal workforce cuts, members of Congress representing the D.C. area have invited now-former federal employees as guests for President Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night.

Ashley Ranalli was one such guest, she was invited by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.)to join him at the speech.

She was a school teacher for 15 years before following her passion and making the leap to public service as a ranger for the National Park Service (NPS).

“Five years ago, I decided I was going to go for it. I’m a dark horse for one of those permanent spots. You have to usually start very, very young. We accrue time differently in the Park Service… We don’t in order to get into those permanent jobs. Landing a permanent job is like winning the lotto. You have to work really hard,” Ranalli said. “I held down two jobs. I was a school teacher by day.”

It was a short-lived dream.

Last month, Ranalli and around 1,000 of her coworkers at the NPS learned they were part of the federal workforce cuts.

Her heart sank. A new career, years in the making, was now gone in just a moment.

“How? It’s over? That’s it? This work, the sacrifice, the love of this. This is not just like a job that you make a ton of money in. You pursue it because you love it, because you love the national resource and you want to protect it,” Ranalli said. “This was an identity for us. It’s more than just losing a job. This was our lives.”

Adding insult to injury, Ranalli said she and her coworkers were given confusing reasons as to why they were fired.

According to Ranalli, she had just had a glowing performance review but then learned she was let go because of “performance issues.”

“The miracle of it all is I got there. The American dream is one where you work hard, sacrifice, and then make it. I had it. These people had it, then [it was] taken from us in such a painful way,” Ranalli said. “All of us got the same performance reasons. All of us were let go for performance reasons. None of our supervisors were contacted. I, myself, had my midyear review the week before that was exemplary. All of us have incredible records.”

It wasn’t just a passion taken away from Ranalli.

The now-former park ranger is a thyroid cancer survivor — but now finds herself without health insurance.

Adding insult to injury, Ranalli told 7News she is also concerned how her firing will look on her resume as she scrambles looking for a job.

“October was when I quit my job teaching. I was actually making more money as a teacher, and I had better health insurance. And now I have nothing. I was fired. That’s on all of our records, that we were poor performers. It’s simply not true. To go out in such a way for something we loved so much, it’s beyond painful,” Ranalli said.

Stories like this have been the norm for Sen. Warner’s constituents in Virginia during the first two months of the Trump administration.

The D.C. metropolitan area – which includes Northern Virginia and parts of Maryland – is home to around 450,000 federal employees, which is about 20 % of the country’s federal workforce.

“These are really challenging times. Right here in the DMV, we’re feeling just the brunt of his frontal attack on government,” Warner said of Ranalli. “She finally got her dream job, took a big salary cut, worked at it, got glowing reviews. Then, on Valentine’s Day, she got fired by email. She’s got no health insurance. She gave up a much better job, and she loved what she was doing. She got fired for no reason other than this is the DOGE boys’ attempts to cut back on government for no rhyme or reason. End of the day, the amount of tax dollars that Fredericksburg will lose because the National Park Service will cut back services is going to be incredible.”

Warner told 7News he is worried he will learn even more of his constituents will find themselves in Ranalli’s shoes if federal agencies continue getting gutted.

Specifically, the senator said he is worried these cuts will disproportionately affect those who have sacrificed life and limb for this country.

“Shaking things up recklessly, firing tens of thousands of federal workers – 30 % of whom are veterans – and not do anything about prices. He got hired because he thought he was going to bring down grocery prices. They’re going up, and they’re going to go up a lot more now with this trade war,” Warner said. “Saying he wants to support our veterans, but then firing federal workers that are 30 % veterans. This just doesn’t connect.”

Freshman Congressman Eugene Vindman, D-Va., also invited a former federal worker as his guest for Trump’s speech.

Joyce Connery, Vindman’s guest, retired before cuts hit her agency.

She told 7News she is concerned about what even more cuts to largely nonpartisan agencies will do to Americans relying on their services and has been disheartened by how these employees have been treated throughout the job reduction process.

“The most tragic thing that I saw was the language and the rhetoric in which the administration was treating the federal workers who labor across the government in very difficult jobs for less money they could make on the outside,” Connery said.

Connery worked during the George W. Bush, Obama, first Trump, and Biden administrations as a specialist in nuclear security, safety, and nonproliferation.

Vindman told 7News that the safety of the country is at risk when agencies like where Connery worked see massive job cuts.

“That kind of expertise is critical to maintaining our national security, and demonizing employees and federal workers like Joyce is a disservice and dims our national security,” Vindman said.

Once Trump takes the lectern, former federal employees like Connery and Ranalli will be in the crowd, hanging on every word.

Ranalli will not be there empty-handed. She is bringing her beloved park ranger hat.

On that hat: pictures of her friends in the agency who also lost their jobs — and a message.

“I have my hat with me today. These are three of my colleagues who also were fired with the same letter, who also were chasing a dream like me,” Ranalli said. “I don’t know if it will matter, but I know I owe it to these people. They can’t be here, and they were unceremoniously booted out of a system that they loved, just like I did. I want to be here for them. There’s a thousand of us. This is a labor of love. These are three of my friends, in particular, that I know were affected by this. I want my presence there to be representative of them. If anything, I’m here fighting, still, to say we didn’t deserve this.”