On the U.S. Civil Service
Publisher’s Statement
Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
President, Avalanche Press

Since January 2025, between 250,000 and 300,000 employees of the federal civil service have been dismissed in what is termed a cost-cutting measure. Their leaders, and those acting in the name of their leaders, have called them corrupt and compared them to the perpetrators of the Holocaust.

This is obscene. My father was a Winter Soldier. That cost him his career. I learned to eat Government Cheese: solid bright-orange slabs of a plastic-like substance that came in long white cardboard cartons. I learned to drink powdered milk. And eat peanut butter out of metal paint cans, that came with a wooden paddle to stir the oil into the sand-like peanut sludge. To this day, I cannot eat peanut butter or orange cheese.

Eventually, another government agency gave my father a new professional life. He found purpose and meaning again; I was able to enjoy a typical middle-class upbringing. I grew up knowing the U.S. civil service as dedicated professionals, spread across every conceivable aspect of modern society. They tend the forests, they feed the hungry, they deliver the mail (in their odd quasi-government way), they fight diseases and they clean up our toxic waste. They inspect everything from old folks’ homes to freshly-slaughtered cattle. They make the trains run on time, and they keep the airplanes from falling out of the sky. And they hand out the Government Cheese.

The barrage of childish insults flung at these dedicated men and women, at civil servants like my father, upsets me deeply. There’s not much we at Avalanche Press can do about this, but what little we can, we will.

If you’ve ever been a customer of ours (we have a list!) and are a current civil service employee, if you have lost your position in this frenzy (or lose it when your agency comes into the line of fire), including contractors who have lost contracts or grants, write to me at mike (at) avalanchepress.com. We will add you to our Gold Club, a $75 value which in addition to discounts, gives you access to the Gold Club Free Library, $365 worth of downloads (including complete games).

It’s not much, but it’s what we have to offer.

Mike Bennighof
President, Avalanche Press

PS: Many of you have asked how you can support us, and we appreciate that. The best means is to join our Gold Club.