This Veterans Day, we honor the brave men and women who have stood proudly in defense of our great nation and reflect on the debt of honor that we owe to them and to their families. On battlefields from Bunker Hill to Baghdad and Kandahar, their extraordinary efforts and selfless sacrifice exemplify the best of America: strength, loyalty and unwavering dedication to the welfare of others.

It is also important to remember that we remain a nation at war, and today there are tens of thousands of service men and women serving in Afghanistan and other places far from American shores. This and every day, I am thankful for their service and am committed to supporting them and their families.

Veterans have a special place in Maine. Per capita, our state’s veteran population ranks among the very highest in the country. We treat our veterans with respect and invest in the services that they need and deserve. Our commitment to them, however, remains only partially fulfilled. No veteran should have to live on the streets of a country they defended.

No veteran should have to endure a lengthy backlog to receive the benefits that they earned. All veterans deserve only the highest quality of care and support that our country can offer them because they fought, and still fight, for the ideals that we hold most dear.

In Maine and around the country, we value the veterans who continue to serve our nation as civilians. Veterans play a key role in our communities: they are often our teachers, our firefighters, our lawyers, our mentors and our friends. They are people bound together by an ethic of selfless service, dedicated to building the free and just America for which they so nobly fought. 

We honor the veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice, those who returned safely to our shores, and future generations of veterans to whom we must rededicate ourselves. Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coastguardsmen put their lives on the line for our country each day. They, and the generations of Americans who have proudly worn the uniform before them, deserve the unwavering support of a grateful nation.