Support for our military personnel is always important, but near our nation’s 250th Anniversary and on and around Memorial Day, it carries a unique and profound significance. Our military is not a toy, and our service members are not pawns to be taken for granted. At this very moment, we have people in harm’s way. Millions of families across the country know the painful cost of that reality; many have lost family and friends whose lives were cut short in defense of our nation.
Our military must never be used as a tool for political propaganda, nor should it ever be led by the incompetent or unqualified. Historically, our armed forces have strived to remain strictly non-partisan, a standard that must be fiercely protected. It does not matter who occupies the White House or which political party controls the government; when ordered to action, our military executes their mission without hesitation. This absolute discipline demands an equal measure of responsibility from our leaders. To deploy our troops without exhaustive deliberation, or to place them in danger simply to justify a political agenda and garner public support, is entirely inexcusable.
We must be willing to honestly evaluate the consequences of our political decisions. We recently started a war pretending there was a threat that did not exist. We executed a foreign leader who declared weapons of mass destruction were forbidden and repeatedly stated that such weapons violate the fundamental principles protecting human life and dignity. This action was taken without any indication of an impending attack against us or our allies, much less a verified capability to do so. Have we made things worse? This type of flippant deployment of our sons and daughters needlessly endangers them and inevitably costs lives.
In the United States, the ultimate authority over our armed forces rests with elected civilian leaders rather than uniformed military officers. This core constitutional principle was intended to ensure that the military remains a precise instrument of democratic policy rather than an independent political power. However, for this dynamic to work, civilian leadership should have a deep appreciation for the sacrifices made by our service members and their families. This understanding is best forged by having leaders who have served themselves. Ultimately, true support for the military involves far more than simple funding, parades and photo ops, or vanity projects designed to carry a politician’s name or advertise their brand.
Genuine support means that we take care of the people in uniform, their surviving families, and the massive influx of non-retiring personnel who separate after their initial service ends. For these young men and women, separating from service requires a jarring, total reinvention of identity. Yet, federal data shows that our current transition frameworks are falling short, with many service members unable to access timely, comprehensive civilian reintegration tracks. If we are not providing robust, proactive transition assistance and safeguarding the full weight of GI Bill educational support to help them integrate smoothly into a nonmilitary society, we are failing them.
Instead, we see a stark disconnect between rhetoric and reality. It is estimated that roughly 24% of active-duty service members experience food insecurity. Reportedly, more than 1.2 million veterans, about 8% of the total veteran population, rely on SNAP food benefits. Aren’t we cutting those? We must ask ourselves: are we truly supporting our military? Empty rhetoric on holidays cannot replace tangible action. Honoring our armed forces means directly addressing and ensuring financial security for our active-duty personnel. It means providing robust transition assistance for our injured, retiring, and separating military, and stopping the short-sighted staffing cuts that have gutted nearly six percent of the VA’s human resources.
When we slash tens of thousands of federal VA jobs, we aren’t just trimming a budget, we are creating a critical shortage of the very psychologists, nurses, and caseworkers our veterans rely on to survive. It is a disgrace that our wounded warriors are forced to wait months for mental health counseling while backroom administrative rules quietly threaten to trim down the disability compensation they rightfully earned. True support means funding a fully-staffed healthcare network, protecting earned benefits from bureaucratic rollbacks, ensuring academic pathways for separating troops, and preventing veteran homelessness through dedicated housing programs. Anything less is just token gestures to try to buy votes. And what happened to not being the world’s policemen?
