Pete Buttigieg Introduces A New Plan to Serve Military Communities
SOUTH BEND, IN — This Veterans Day, Pete Buttigieg released a new plan to honor veterans and military families. His ‘Our Shared Duty: Serving Those Who Serve’ plan will prioritize veterans’ health, unlock economic opportunity for military families, and promote inclusion for veterans and their families returning home.
“When you put your right hand up and make a promise to give everything to your country, the promise America makes is to remember you, respect your service, and care for you and your family,” said Buttigieg. “That promise lasts long after you hang up your uniform. Right now we are not seeing that promise fulfilled, from long VA wait times, barriers to the full inclusion of women servicemembers, to the often unsafe on-base housing for military families. Veterans Day is an opportunity to do more than just thank our veterans for their service — we must ensure that veterans have access to the benefits they earned in service to our country.”
Our service members and their families deserve a Commander-in-Chief who understands and holds the service of our veterans sacred. Pete is a U.S. Naval Reserve veteran, having served as an intelligence officer who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2014.
Pete will keep America’s solemn promise to respect and care for our veterans and military families. As President, Pete will honor their sacrifice with a plan to:
• Streamline access to medical care by establishing a White House coordinator to coordinate between the VA and the Department of Defense (DoD) and ending the personnel shortage.
• Ensure each service member will have one medical record from time of enlistment through their entire VA care and can access medical and other data through a veteran-centric portal.
• Support the full integration of women service members into the military, including in training programs, and direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to revise the VA motto.
• Guarantee access to mental health care and promote suicide prevention.
• Expand family caregiving programs, and make it easier for military spouses to pause loan repayments and transition back to “civilian” life.
• Fix military housing by hold private housing contractors accountable.
• Ensure racial equality in the military and honor immigrants who serve by reinstating the MAVNI program and protecting immigrants who served, and their family members, from deportation.
• End the transgender military ban.
• End veteran homelessness with a housing-first approach that prioritizes permanent supportive housing and state and local partnerships.
• Grow civic-minded service nationwide through A New Call to Service.
• Close the loophole that excludes the DoD Tuition Assistance and GI Bill funding from student protections.
When we ask our service members to put their lives on the line for America, we must be ready to provide them, and their families, with the support they need.
