I don’t want to politicize Veterans Day, but there is too much in the news at the moment to ignore, relating to the sudden 180 that’s occurred in the relationship between our service members and those in command.

Last Veterans Day, our service members still had a Commander in Chief who had made their welfare a top concern of his Administration. He constantly praised our troops, went out of his way to show respect for them, and made fixing the shameful conditions at VA hospitals one of his first priorities. He was also rightly proud of being the first President in decades who started no new wars. He was willing to use the military when necessary, but he made sure their hands weren’t tied. He respected that these heroic men and women were willing to put their lives on the line for the USA, and he felt it his duty not to make them take that risk for less than vital reasons, and to give them every advantage to make sure they came home safely.

All that changed with the 2020 election. Since Biden came into office, it seems as if he and his staff and top military leaders are more concerned with waging war on our own troops than in ensuring we can defeat our enemies abroad. They treat members of the military with suspicion and hostility, sifting through their social media pages and treating those who express conservative views as worse threats to America than ISIS. Service members are threatened with dishonorable discharges and loss of the benefits they put their lives and limbs on the line to earn, just because they object to taking a vaccine they don’t want (even religious objections are not respected.)

This Administration thinks that illegal immigrants who don’t like the way they were treated when they were detained for breaking our immigration laws deserve $450,000 in compensation, 4-1/2 times more than Gold Star families receive when a loved one is killed in the line of duty. They also continue to spend outrageous amounts of tax money to shelter, support and transport illegal immigrants, even as homeless veterans live on the streets and go without needed medical care.

Perhaps worst of all, Biden’s botched pullout from Afghanistan needlessly cost the lives of 13 brave service members. Yet to this day, the only military person who’s faced any consequences for that was a Marine Lt. Colonel who was jailed and discharged for calling on his superior officers to show some accountability.

So yes, there are many, many reasons why I am counting the minutes until I can vote to throw all of these people out of office. But as I’m checking the boxes on the ballot, I can assure you that the #1 thought in my mind will be, “This is for the veterans.”