During a town hall on Wednesday, Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-CO) spoke about the Trump Administration's cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
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00:00All right. I'm trying to find another one. All right. Protect the veterans' benefits in Medicaid. Oh, medical re-entry to civil life. This is from Carlo Poya from Buena Vista.
00:15All right. I kind of want to thank you so much for the question. So, of course, protecting the veterans' benefits, this is a number one priority that Senator Bennett and I are fighting for at the federal level.
00:37Unfortunately, what they're doing right now, you all read the news, they laid off thousands of employees that we rely on for veteran services to connect them to benefits.
00:47So, everything is on the chopping block right now and I'm deeply concerned about our veterans.
00:53We were meeting with folks earlier today that talked about the people that they see who rely on these critical services, but then how many of them aren't actually connected to benefits at all
01:04who live in our community who need the people supporting them to make sure that they have – they're able to navigate the system.
01:10And so, we have to speak out. This is on the chopping block. Unfortunately, they're making it so it doesn't work, just like Social Security.
01:18And so, I want you to know that we'll be working that we have veterans.
01:23And I would just say thank you very much for the question.
01:27My father, at 15 and a half years old, joined the U.S. Marine Corps and went to Guam and the Philippines.
01:33My father, at 15 and a half years old, joined the U.S. Marine Corps and went to Guam and the Philippines.
01:49And set up the power lines for the Code Talkers. And my mother and brother went to Italy and died for our country.
02:05And my mom's family are immigrants from Sicily. And my dad's family is from Scandinavia.
02:12And to me, the veterans are the most important person in this room.
02:17And it's the veterans and the military who are going to protect us when things start going – come back.
02:26Thank you. Thank you for that.
02:28Thank you. Thank you for that.
02:30You can't win yet, though. That was a long time ago.
02:43Well, can I just mention one thing?
02:46To go back to the history question and to your question, and it's third, where did you go?
02:51We're going to be the best citizens.
02:54But here's three of my stories. It's an incredible one.
02:57And another incredible one that I think about sometimes is, obviously, Camp Hale,
03:04which Joe Biden made his first day at National Lawyer University.
03:09And while he was good, and I was out on the story about Camp Hale,
03:17and the 10th Bound Division and the fight that they had led,
03:21incredible fight that they had led in the snow in the mountains of Northern Italy
03:25and pushed the Nazis out.
03:27There's another story, another Colorado story from that exact same time,
03:32and that's the story of Camp Hale,
03:35which was an internment camp on the eastern plains of Colorado.
03:40Another time when a president, in this case I would sound to say a Democratic president,
03:46was taking away the rights of people out of what we call the time race hatred.
03:53While people were a lot better than that camp,
03:56there were people whose kids wanted to plot fascism in Europe
04:00while their parents were behind a barbed wire.
04:03And it's a reminder, I think, of how deeply this commitment to democracy actually was in this country.
04:13There were also people in that camp who would not let their kids go fight.
04:17Because their patriarchy, even as long as their families were locked up on a barbed wire,
04:22America could never fulfill the history that we have.
04:26If our students don't understand that history, and that history is whitewashed,
04:31there's no way for them to understand why the states are so hot,
04:35and why this fight is so important.
04:38And that's why it's so important for all of you to be here tonight.
04:41And I just want to say thank you again for the bottom of my heart.