By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON (AA) - US President Joe Biden commemorated former service members on Thursday, saying the nation owes a debt of gratitude to those who are "the very spine of America."
Speaking at a Veterans Day observance ceremony, Biden said it is his "single greatest honor I’ve been afforded as president" to address the roughly 650 people in attendance at Arlington National Cemetery
"Today we pay homage to the unrelenting bravery and dedication that distinguishes all those who’ve earned the title of American veteran," said Biden. "All of us owe you. So on Veteran’s Day, and every day we honor that great debt, we recommit ourselves to keeping our sacred obligation as a nation to honor what you’ve done.”
This is the first Veterans Day in 20 years the US has not been engaged in hostilities in Afghanistan after Biden completed a US withdrawal from the war-torn country in August. The war was the longest in US history.
Biden separately announced a plan to identify and treat veterans who were exposed to toxins while serving in the armed forces, and have developed medical conditions, including rare cancers, as a result. Biden blames the death of his son, Beau, who served in Iraq from 2008 to 2009, on exposure to "burn pits," sites in which the military burned waste of all sorts at overseas facilities.
Beau Biden was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2013 and died in 2015 at the age of 46. The president said in 2018 that his son's exposure to burn pits could have played "a significant role” in Beau's cancer.
Biden's plan will make it easier for veterans to receive benefits after being exposed to burn pits and other environmental hazards while serving.
The White House noted "gaps and delays in the scientific evidence demonstrating conclusive links between known exposures and health impacts, leaving many veterans without access to Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits and high-quality treatment to address significant health conditions."
The VA will now "mitigate" the difficulty some have had in claiming benefits by creating "presumptions of exposure in order to establish service connection for various chronic conditions when the evidence of an environmental exposure and the associated health risks are strong in the aggregate but hard to prove on an individual basis," according to a White House statement.