I have some experience with the VA system and a lot of your experience and pay will vary surprisingly significantly based on the VA. The majority of your pay at the VA is determined by the specific area your VA exists in and the amount they settled on that they feel makes their pay "competitive". This results in a wide range (>100k) difference between salaries based on VA location and what needs the VA has for an anesthesiologist. To give you some anecdotal numbers, I had a friend who made 270k at a very low volume VA (5 ORs, done by ~3PM routinely, no cRNAs so 1 attending for 1 OR and residents rotating through) and another who made 390k at a VA with around 15 ORs, cardiac, transplants, etc and 1:2 - 1:3 coverage of cRNAs or residents (1:2 with residents of course). The cap for a VA salary is 400k because government jobs are limited by the President's salary, but you can exceed this number with raises and bonuses.
The variety of cases will vary significantly based on the VA as well. A lot of what the VA does often reflects the academic centers around it since many surgeons are "loaned" out by academic programs due to the lack of pay restriction in these scenarios, and the VA pays a portion of their salary. Finding surgeons who are purely VA employees at the more major VAs is not especially common. If you are at a VA associated with a big name academic center with great surgeons you have a higher likelihood of encountering a number of great surgeons at the VA and you'll be doing cases at a much faster pace than VAs elsewhere.
You will definitely lose your feel for OB and Peds, depending on where you practiced before, many major academic centers you may not be doing OB or Peds anyways unless you are on those "teams", so that part of it may be a wash.
The basic benefits are as follows (link:
https://www.opm.gov/retirement-services/publications-forms/pamphlets/ri90-1.pdf)
Pension: 5 years to be vested, the formula for payout mentioned above is roughly correct, the % deduction from your pay is somewhat hard to predict as it depends on individual pay, but for higher paid individuals its something around 5%. You would need to find someone who works for a VA currently who could give you a more exact amount. A lot of the traditional VA "rules" of how things are calculated do not really apply to physicians as they get the top end of a lot of benefits from day 1.
401K: The thrift savings plan is basically a 401k. You vest after 18 months. The investment options basically boil down to a S&P500 index, a bond market index, and a government bond type index. The matching is 1% with no contribution from you and then up to 10%, but the dollar amount maxes well before the 10% for a physician salary. You'd need to find someone currently employed there to find out the dollar amount it maxes at because it changes year to year.
The vacation is 26 days a year, you can bank something in the 80s, and they will buy them back when you leave. Sick days I think are 12ish a year and these aren't bought back, but unused ones are added to time spent when calculating your pension. It is not correct that everyone gets 26 vacation days. The amount of vacation days earned changes the longer someone is employed (with a max of 26 a year), but physicians start at the maximum. You get all federal holidays off (I don't know how the random Trump holidays work).
Your day to day varies significantly between VAs. The more advanced ones will run similar to an academic center, likely with longer turnover times in between, and more vilified ones you may just be warming a seat most of the day.
I disagree with the "do it tomorrow" attitude being endemic. I have seen some VAs where this is the case, but I have also seen others where it is very overtly not. The one thing that is removed is a pay incentive to do cases that may otherwise not be the best idea to do.
If you have any questions I have two very good friends who are current employees with the government and I can pass it along.
