Doug Collins, the U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs, is at the Iowa State Fair today and helped kick off the fair’s annual Veterans Day Parade.
“Look around for just a second. You don’t have any of this. You don’t have 250 years except somebody raised their hand and said: ‘I’m willing to go do what others are not willing to do,'” Collins said. “Our veterans give us all this in this country and we should never forget it.”
Collins, a former Georgia congressman, served as a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force. “I hear people say that, ‘We give veterans this,’ and ‘We give veterans that,'” Collins said. “Before this parade starts, I want you to know we don’t give veterans anything. They’ve earned every bit of what they have.”
Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs Commandant Todd Jacobus said today’s parade honors Iowans who’ve served in conflicts all the way back to the Revolutionary War. “Heritage and service runs deep in Iowa soil,” Collins said. “We today at least 41 Revolutionary War veterans migrated to the Iowa territory to spend their final years.”
Today, thousands of veterans and their families lined up along the State Fair’s Grand Concourse for the annual Veterans parade at the fair. Organizers say there was record number of entries. There’s a new Veterans Memorial Walkway on the fairgrounds that’s packed today as well.