Dakota Beacon

Today is “Veterans’ Day”.  It was once called “Armistice Day”, recognizing the important date of the end of hostilities of World War I.  I had a relative who served in Italy during World War I.  Fortunately he was one of those who came home alive.  In time it was decided that we should honor our veterans on this day - veterans of all of our wars.  No one objects to this, although we should mark the actual history because history is important.  

Our veterans have not always been treated well by our government once they were no longer useful as soldiers.  This is shameful.  We should all recall the disgraceful condition of many of our veterans hospitals prior to 2016 and the unreasonable wait many of our veterans had in order to obtain services.  My uncle, a World War II veteran, when debating with me about the man running for a second term as president, that Donald Trump had done so much to improve the conditions and options for veterans during his first term.  At the time of our conversation I was not fully convinced.  But the truth is that he made many beneficial changes.  Now, since these important changes, a veteran may choose his own health care provider, waits have lessened impressively, those who were either unqualified or unethical were terminated and people were hired who respected our veterans.  This explains the respect in which Trump is held by so many veterans.

But this is not the only way in which the Trump administration has helped veterans.  His is the first administration in decades in which we were not involved in a war.  We had one or two special operations to take out key terrorist leaders - which probably helped us avoid being dragged into another war or experiencing another terrorist attack.  Our energy independence will be a long-term deterrent to being dragged into war as well.  And Trump is largely responsible for making that happen.  We have always had the potential to be energy independent, but former leaders in power preferred that we remain hostage to foreign nations and helpless.  This also led us into wars.  

Trump’s amazingly successful efforts to forge peace in Eastern Europe and the MIddle East, to contain China and North Korea through benign alliances in the Far East, have directly helped us to avoid conflicts in which our young men and women might be killed or grievously wounded and disabled.  

So, on this Veterans’ Day, we should honor our veterans, from the Revolutionary War in 1776 to our present day vets, honorable men and women who have put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms.  And we should also honor the tireless efforts of Trump to bring peace to regions torn by war for generations, for enabling our powerhouse of energy the freedom to flourish and give us independence, and for his improvements to services promised but too often in the past not delivered to our courageous veterans.  

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