Tampa Tribune - Marco Rubio: Honoring Our Veterans -- In Words and Deeds

Op-Ed

By Marco Rubio

On this Veterans Day, we give thanks to all the brave men and women who have served our nation in uniform, as well as their families who have sacrificed so much.

We also remember their fallen brothers and sisters in arms, including Matthew J. LaCourse, a retired lieutenant colonel flying out of Florida's Tyndall Air Force Base who died last week in an F-16 crash. The United States is a special place because so many courageous people like him have defended our country and our interests abroad.

This past year has been a trying one for veterans across the country, in large part because they were victimized by unspeakable scandals at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The good news is that despite having a dysfunctional U.S. Senate, we were able to pass a law making significant reforms to the VA.

The bad news is that it took a crisis to create a sense of urgency to actually do something.

As we look forward to the next two years under Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, we need to work with a consistent sense of urgency to get things for our veterans.

This is especially true when it comes to making sure their medical needs are met with timely, high-quality and dignified health care.

For example, we must ensure that the VA reform law passed this year is properly implemented. Among its many reforms was one I championed with House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller, a Florida Republican, empowering the VA secretary to discipline and fire incompetent managers. This is a power for the administration to hold senior officials accountable, and Congress must make sure that it is properly used.

We also need to make sure that the Veterans Choice Cards authorized in the law are issued to eligible veterans by year's end so they have the freedom to find more timely health care. The law also included measures to fix the ongoing problem of excessive delays in processing veterans' claims and appeals, so we must ensure that the resources are being delivered to achieve this goal.

I'm also hopeful that several noncontroversial, bipartisan military and veterans proposals that never saw the light of the day in the recent Washington dysfunction will be properly debated, passed and ultimately sent to the president's desk.

For example, during this Congress, I worked with Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., to raise the salaries of active-duty military personnel by 1.8 percent. Another proposal, which I sponsored with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., would establish stronger financial protections for veterans being targeted by scams in the VA's Aid and Assistance Benefit, which helps pay for assisted living or in-home personal care for eligible veterans.

In the dysfunction of the past, neither of these measures nor similar ones developed by others had a realistic chance despite having bipartisan -- and in some cases practically universal -- support. I am hopeful that will change in the new Congress. Because as we continue to deploy troops overseas to fight ISIL and Islamic extremists, respond to natural disasters and crises like Ebola, reassure allies and defend our interests, we have a duty to take care of them and their families and ensure that they can live safe and dignified postmilitary lives.

Finally, we have a responsibility to clearly define our military's priorities for the coming years -- to make sure that years from now, they can look back on their service with pride and a clear understanding of what was at stake and how their sacrifices served the interests of the American people.

As we commemorate Veterans Day, let's commit to backing up the tributes being made in words today with real deeds that truly honor our veterans' service.

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