Hello, this is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening.
Well, last Sunday I joined hundreds of Maine people at the Army National Guard Reserve Base in Bangor to welcome 78 veterans who were coming home from Washington, D.C. It was the largest group ever to travel with Honor Flight Maine, an organization that brings veterans to our nation's capital to visit the memorials that are dedicated to their service.
Many of the veterans I met that day served in Vietnam. That's no surprise -- 48,000 men and women from Maine, including members of my own family, served our country with honor and distinction in the Vietnam War.
After the Honor Flight landed, U.S. Navy veteran George Mathis said, "I wish I could do this every month. This was beautiful," he said.
U.S. Army veteran Earl Williams said, "We didn't get the coming home before. Now I've come home. Everybody made me so proud to be an American."
Since its first mission in April 2014, Honor Flight Maine has transported nearly 1,300 veterans to Washington, D.C., free of charge. I'm grateful to Honor Flight Maine and the Maine National Guard for giving our veterans a chance to honor their fellow soldiers, and to reflect on their own service and sacrifice, and to receive a hero's welcome that they deserve here in Maine.
Our veterans are the inspiration for our freedoms. They're the driving force behind the character of our country, and they're the soul of our community.
Think of the person who fixes your furnace, who plows your road, who greets you in the local store, helps you with the hospital. Think of a neighbor, a fellow hunter, a nurse, or a teacher. We're surrounded by veterans and by the survivors of these wars. They fought to preserve our country and our Constitution. They fought for the rights that too often we take for granted every day. And I was proud of the many people who gathered in Bangor last week to show our gratitude to our veterans. It meant the world to them.
As Vietnam veteran Skip Brown put it, "Where'd they get all these people? They must have emptied every home in Maine. This is unbelievable," he said.
While the Honor Flight Ceremony in Bangor was important, the best way we can show our gratitude to veterans is by protecting the services that they've earned -- services at the Veterans Administration and at the Maine Bureau of Veterans Services. Brigadier General Diane Dunn, our Commissioner of the Department of Veterans and Emergency Management, spoke about some of those services in her annual State of the DVEM address delivered to a Joint Session of the Legislature this week.
General Dunn highlighted the fact that the Bureau of Veterans Services laid 998 veterans and spouses to rest across Maine's Veterans Memorial Cemetery System last year. They helped veterans file more than 2,500 claims for health care and disability benefits. And they approved more than $13 million in education benefits so veterans could go on to college and universities in Maine.
I thank General Dunn and I thank the Department of Veterans and Emergency Management staff for their dedication, which allows us to deliver these and other exceptional services to veterans across the State of Maine every year. As General Dunn said in her address, that department is "An organization of passionate professionals, citizen soldiers and airmen, emergency managers, and veterans advocates, all working tirelessly towards a shared mission to protect, serve, and honor the people of Maine."
So I want to add my thanks to the staff of the Bureau of Veteran Services and to the Maine National Guard for their commitment to Maine people. And thank you especially to all of our veterans. I say to them: we're so very proud of you. We will always honor you. We'll always be here to welcome you home.
This is Governor Janet Mills, and thank you for listening.