OPINION:
In 1918, after the end of World War I, my grandfather, who had served in the Navy, and his brother, who had served in the Army, returned to their hometown of Boston, where they had a tearful reunion both feared would never come to pass when they deployed overseas. Exposed to chemical weapons on the battlefields and in the trenches on the barbaric Western Front, my great-uncle suffered from poor health and died a young man.
I never met my great-uncle, and my grandfather never spoke of the Great War with me. But it was their legacy of service to our nation that deeply inspired my own career path.
Speaking on Veterans Day 1989 at Arlington Cemetery, the late Colin Powell, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, lauded the courageous WWI veterans who “showed the whole world that Americans were prepared to leave the safety of our continent to defend the ideals of peace, freedom and democracy for those threatened by aggression. They returned to their homes in the United States and helped to build this nation into the greatest the world has ever known.”
Originally known as Armistice Day to mark the end of WWI, Veterans Day began honoring those who served in the U.S. armed forces in 1954 thanks to Raymond Weeks, who served in the Navy during World War II and successfully petitioned President Dwight D. Eisenhower for a holiday dedicated to all the nation’s veterans, living and deceased.
Our honored veterans and their families hold the most distinguished record of sacrifice to keep our nation safe. They have answered every call to serve in harm’s way and keep us safe, preempting threats before they are visited on our shores.
All of us surely long for the day when our national security does not demand so much sacrifice and risk from our men and women in uniform. But the world is more interconnected today than at any time in our history.
Our enemies can reach us in spite of the geographic separation that gave us a unique measure of security until the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. Facing violent rogue regimes such as China, Iran, Russia and North Korea, as well as transnational terrorists, it is hard to imagine a future without even greater reliance on our men and women in uniform.
Apolitical and guarding our national security free of partisanship, America’s armed forces are our nation’s most trusted and diverse institution. Any appearance of political favoritism would undermine the great trust we place in them.
Veterans Day is a solemn reminder of the price so many have paid on our behalf so that we may enjoy liberty, freedom and democracy, which are the pillars of our “shining city on a hill.”
All of us must recognize that when our soldiers return home, the battles they fought overseas can have a lasting impact on their mental as well as physical health.
As of the latest census in 2021, there were 16.5 million military veterans in the U.S., a quarter of whom were \ 75 and older. That equates to about 5% of the U.S. population of 332 million, shouldering the burden to protect and defend our civilian population.
We must give our veterans every measure of the best support we can deliver.
That means everything from better and more comprehensive mental health care to servicing the over 100,000 disability claims already filed after the August passage of the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act. That legislation finally addressed veterans’ toxic exposure to cancer and other respiratory illnesses linked to so-called burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On this Veterans Day, we would do well to consider the concrete steps we can take — on top of what the Department of Veterans Affairs is doing — to fulfill our sacred duty to support our veterans. When I served overseas, we joined our embassy colleagues to raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project. I fondly remember a 5K race in Moscow, which had the added benefit of demonstrating to our Russian hosts how much we cared for our disabled veterans. There are many other outstanding organizations that are dedicated to supporting veterans and their families.
And as I’ve been teaching my young sons, never underestimate the impact of taking the initiative to tell a veteran, “Thank you for what you did for me and my family. Thank you for your service to our grateful nation.”
• Daniel N. Hoffman is a retired clandestine services officer and former chief of station with the Central Intelligence Agency. His combined 30 years of government service included high-level overseas and domestic positions at the CIA. He has been a Fox News contributor since May 2018. Follow him on Twitter @DanielHoffmanDC.
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