Veterans

All Americans must take care to remember that that young men and women wearing our nation’s uniform continue to stand harms way in Iraq and Afghanistan. Let us honor them as well as the memory of the more than 4,400 Americans who have died in Iraq and more than 1,000 who have died in Afghanistan.  We must also honor the sacrifices of our wounded: nearly 32,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 5,700 in Afghanistan.

We must keep our nation’s promises to our 3 million troops and reservists, their families and 23 million veterans, including the 770,000 veterans living here in North Carolina.

With this economic crisis, we can all be proud that Congress has enacted critical measures to expand educational opportunity and economic relief.  The new GI Bill, which took effect last August, restores the promise of a full, four-year college education. And, those crucial college benefits have rightly been extended to all children of fallen service members since September 11th, 2001.

Recognizing that veterans coming home are facing double-digit unemployment, Congress has enacted incentives for businesses to hire unemployed veterans.  As part of the Recovery Act, Congress provided nearly 2 million disabled veterans with a $250 payment to help make ends meet.

As we all know, many of our troops have served multiple tours of duty, creating great financial strains on their families.  In response, Congress provided special $500 payments for every month the 185,000 service members and veterans were forced to serve under stop-loss orders since 2001.  And equally important, Congress has also taken steps to reduce the backlog and wait for veterans trying to access their earned benefits. 

For wounded veterans, Congress just enacted landmark legislation to provide help to family members and other caregivers of disabled, ill or injured veterans, such as training, counseling, and respite care, and to eliminate co-payments for catastrophically disabled veterans. Congress also provided family leave benefits for families of our wounded warriors.

Congress also enacted a law guaranteeing timely and predictable funding for veterans’ health care, a key priority of many veterans’ groups that provided advance appropriations of $48 billion for veterans’ medical care for 2011.

These are just a few of the many efforts Congress has made recently, and Congress must continue to work to keep America’s promises to our veterans and to the men and women who wear the uniform today.