Matt Cartwright: American Rescue Plan help is here for NEPA veterans

As we celebrate Memorial Day, I’m thinking of all of Northeastern Pennsylvania’s servicemembers: those who laid down their lives in service to our nation, those who returned safely to their families but have since passed on, the veterans still with us and those on active duty.

All of them deserve recognition for defending the American experiment – a revolutionary pursuit of a society that guarantees equal opportunity, rights and freedoms for all. While we continue striving for those high ideals, these servicemembers fought, and many gave their lives, so the great experiment could carry on. We’re here today because they believed it was worth fighting for.

The commitment of our military men and women throughout history never ceases to inspire me. That’s why earlier this month, I led a 21-member Congressional Delegation of Democrats and Republicans to Arlington National Cemetery. We visited the gravesite of Corporal Frank Buckles, the longest-surviving American servicemember who fought in World War I.

Eager to serve his country during WWI, Frank lied about his age to enlist in the Army in 1917. He served in numerous stations in France, where he drove military ambulances and other vehicles. My fellow Congressmembers and I laid a wreath at his gravesite in his memory – and the memory of all our fallen servicemembers.

This weekend, it is my solemn honor to celebrate the Memorial Day tradition with some of our local veterans’ organizations and express my gratitude for their service to our country. They deserve as much recognition as those who have gone before them, and I believe the best way to thank them is by taking real action to support them – especially after a difficult year.

I was proud to help pass the American Rescue Plan, which continues to ensure veterans are taken care of as they recover from this pandemic.

The American Rescue Plan is helping to improve VA care by providing additional resources for the Veterans Health Administration to respond to more expensive care needs that may have emerged for veterans during the pandemic or resulted in them delaying key appointments. It also allowed VA to waive copays that would otherwise be charged to veterans during COVID-19 to ensure no one felt the need to put off essential care any longer.

For the thousands of veterans who lost jobs because of the pandemic, the American Rescue Plan is funding up to 12 months of rapid retraining assistance to help get them back to work.

And for veterans who count on VA benefits, the American Rescue Plan authorized over $250 million to reduce the backlog of claims that grew by more than two-and-a-half times since the onset of COVID-19. These additional resources will help clear the logjam so those payments can get to our deserving veterans on time again.

This pandemic year has been a trying time for all of us, but especially for our veteran community, which has so many unique needs. This Memorial Day, I’m proud not only to thank them for their service to our nation, but also to be able to tell them that help is here.