By JIM BANKS
United States Senator
Banks
This Veterans Day is a special one. 250 years after the founding of the greatest country in the history of the world, we remember and honor the men and women in uniform who continue to keep the spirit of 1776 alive. It was the greatest privilege of my life to wear the American flag on my uniform, and I join Hoosiers and all Americans in saying to our veterans: thank you for your service. We pay tribute to you for your sacrifices and hope that your service inspires the next generation of Americans to serve.
Fighting for Indiana’s veterans is some of the most important work I do in the Senate. Indiana is home to over 400,000 veterans. Since the Indian Wars and the Civil War, there have been 99 Hoosier Medal of Honor recipients. Hoosiers are proud of our veterans’ legacy of service, and you can see that pride in our war memorials all around our great state. You see it from the National Memorial Shrine in Fort Wayne, to the Military Honor Park and Museum in South Bend, to the Indiana Military Museum in Vincennes, to the Ernie Pyle Museum in Dana.
Veterans choose Indiana because this is a patriotic state that values service, honors sacrifice, and takes care of its own.
I am incredibly proud of what I have been able to accomplish for Hoosier veterans on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. I worked with my colleagues to move legislation through the committee that improves the benefits claims process, makes sure veterans can be buried with their spouses in national cemeteries if they choose, reforms how the VA builds health care facilities, and guarantees that service-disabled veterans can access the prosthetics they need to exercise and play sports.
I’m also working to upgrade our VA medical facilities around the state. Last year, I made the case for a new Roudebush medical center repeatedly to Secretary Doug Collins and other VA leaders, and President Trump ranked it the VA’s top construction priority in this year’s budget. Roudebush is more than 75 years old, and veterans deserve a state-of-the-art, flagship hospital. In June, I organized a letter from the whole Indiana congressional delegation to the Appropriations Committee supporting full funding for the project. I’m looking forward to securing the dollars to build it in the next few months.
A new, major VA outpatient clinic in Fishers is also moving forward. I’m pushing the Senate to authorize the project before the end of the year. It will allow veterans north of Indy to get all their outpatient care closer to where they live, without going into the city. I’m also working with the VA to plan a new clinic in Northwest Indiana, and I expect the plans for that new clinic to be announced next year. Last week, I worked with DAV to establish a vet center community access point in Kokomo. Veterans, servicemembers, and their family members can now get counseling at DAV Chapter 28 in Kokomo. I’m grateful to Commander Ross Havrick for this great idea, and we made it happen in record time. I will keep pushing for a full-scale vet center in North Central Indiana.
Getting these projects approved is just the beginning. I will be working with our veteran service organizations, the VA, and community leaders to break ground on these facilities and build them as efficiently as possible. Indiana can set the example for the rest of the country in how to develop modern medical facilities for veterans faster, more affordably, and more innovatively.
Our veterans risked life and limb for this country, and I will not stop fighting to make sure that they have all the resources they need to thrive.
Jim Banks, a Republican, represents Indiana in the United States Senate.
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