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3471A Navy veteran says she was fired from her civilian job at the Department of the Navy for sending a limerick in response to a controversial reporting requirement tied to Elon Musk.
Grace Jones, a lieutenant commander in the Navy Reserves and graduate of Stanford and Harvard, shared her story in a Fortune op-ed published March 26. She says she was let go after responding to a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) directive with five rhyming lines on St. Patrick’s Day. The new rule asked federal employees to submit weekly five-bullet summaries of their work.
“When leadership reduced our work to unclassified and meaningless bullet points, they got a response commensurate with the assignment,” Jones wrote. Her limerick included a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Pentagon’s Replicator drone initiative and ended with, “And pondered why bullets won’t yield.”
Fired Over a Limerick
Despite positive performance reviews and no prior disciplinary issues, Jones was terminated for “poor conduct,” with the limerick cited as the only evidence. Her supervisor, who was copied on all her emails, was caught off guard.
“I was fired without counseling,” Jones said. “I had not received a negative performance review. My entire chain of command had stated repeatedly I was doing a great job.”
Jones argues her firing is part of a bigger problem: the erosion of institutional values in favor of appeasing Elon Musk, who is closely tied to the Trump administration and DOGE. “The Navy that my grandfather and I joined in the spirit of service is currently buckling to Musk, sacrificing its long-held principles for the sake of political deference,” she wrote.
A Broken System
DOGE’s weekly bullet requirement has been met with confusion and frustration by federal employees. Jones said her team was told to keep submissions short, and leadership admitted they had “not received any indication that these are being read.”
She also raised concerns about the security risks of sending nearly 1 million Department of Defense civilian emails to a single address, warning that even unclassified information can become sensitive when aggregated.
As a probationary employee, Jones had no job protection or right to appeal. But she says her qualifications and dedication highlight what the government stands to lose with DOGE’s approach. “I offer my qualifications simply as additional context to illustrate the talent and commitment that the federal government is losing because of DOGE.”
In her op-ed, Jones criticized Musk’s influence over government operations and accused DOGE of performative cost-cutting. “DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts in the department…are firing workers who lack protections,” she wrote. “Workers willing to sacrifice everything for their country are instead being sacrificed for expediency.”
A Final Message
She ended her piece with a message for her former bosses: “To Musk and DOGE: History will not be kind. There’s still time to jump ship in favor of whatever honor remains. Non sibi sed patriae.”
And to federal employees still on the inside: “Do not live in fear. Semper Fortis.”
Jones says her rhyme was an act of minor dissent, but dissent nonetheless. In her words, “Yes, I wrote a rhyme for levity during these dark times, but it was hardly conduct unbecoming of a defense official.”
Her firing, she believes, shows how fragile dissent has become in a system increasingly shaped by politics over principle.
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