The Best Way To Say Thank You On Memorial Day

On Memorial Day, we remember those who have given their lives that we might live in freedom and we express our gratitude to those who have served on our behalf.

This Memorial Day, what better way to say thank you to those who have perished, those who have served in the past, and those who are serving now than to ensure that we show our appreciation in tangible ways when their service has ended?  That means hiring veterans and helping them when they have returned to civilian life, thanking members of the military whenever we see them, and — above all — committing our nation to providing a Veterans Administration that serves our returning veterans as capably as they have served this country.

The current VA scandal is shameful.  Fixing the VA and its broken culture so that our veterans receive prompt and top-quality medical care is not a political issue, it is a matter of fulfilling a fundamental moral obligation.  Whether we do it by cleaning house from the VA secretary on down, getting rid of administrators who think it is appropriate to falsify data and cover up the terrible failings at their facilities, and starting over, or by scrapping the VA hospital and medical system entirely and giving veterans coverage that allows them to receive medical care from the same hospitals and doctors as the rest of us, we must do something to solve this problem.  We should thank the whistleblowers who called attention to the VA’s problems, and we should hold President Obama and his Administration accountable and demand that they stop the endless studies and act.

On this Memorial Day, we thank our veterans and men and women in uniform, but the best thank you is for the United States to fix a broken system that has let our veterans down.