Because all of us believe and understand in the fabric of the common bond of why we call ourselves American is to care for the men and women who wear the uniform and when they take off the uniform we care for them when they are veterans.

To honor our national promise to our veterans we must continue to improve services for our men and women in uniform today and provide long overdue benefits for the veterans and military retirees who have already served.

I took every chance I could to meet with U.S. soldiers. I talked with them and read the books they gave me about the war. I decided I needed to return to my country and join with them - active duty soldiers and Vietnam Veterans in particular - to try and end the war.

It was a requirement by the veterans to list the 57 000 names. We're reaching a time that we'll acknowledge the individual in a war on a national level.

One of the good things about the way the Gulf War ended in 1991 is you'd see the Vietnam veterans marching with the Gulf War veterans.

America's veterans and troops serving abroad today fought hard to preserve our red white and blue from the Revolutionary War to today's Global War Against Terrorism and Congress' action today is appropriate for one of our most sacred symbols.

We owe our World War II veterans - and all our veterans - a debt we can never fully repay.

In the re-creation of combat situations and this is coming from a director who's never been in one being mindful of what these veterans have actually gone through you find that the biggest concern is that you don't look at war as a geopolitical endeavor.

The need for this clinic is clear to me to the veterans who are currently forced to travel hours to receive care and even to the Veterans Administration that itself identified creation of a clinic in this part of our state as a priority to be completed by 2006.

We can't equate spending on veterans with spending on defense. Our strength is not just in the size of our defense budget but in the size of our hearts in the size of our gratitude for their sacrifice. And that's not just measured in words or gestures.

I'm pretty upfront about my love and admiration for the military. One of the perks of making movies is that you get to sort of follow your own passions and I believe quite passionately that we don't pay enough attention and respect to our veterans. Not just our wounded veterans but all veterans.

I deliberately did not read anything about the Vietnam War because I felt the politics of the war eclipsed what happened to the veterans. The politics were irrelevant to what this memorial was.

We are telling veterans they must sacrifice to pay for the pet projects and contracts to campaign donors of powerful members of Congress.

But this Veterans Day I believe we should do more than sing the praises of the bravery and patriotism that our veterans have embodied in the past. We should take this opportunity to re-evaluate how we are treating our veterans in the present.

The sacrifices made by veterans and their willingness to fight in defense of our nation merit our deep respect and praise - and to the best in benefits and medical care.

Well look at what people are doing for returned veterans now. The wounded warriors. They're working hard to make the wounded veterans feel that they are loved and welcomed home unlike Vietnam. It was not a very kind gentle world then. I think we are kinder and gentler.

The object of my relationship with Vietnam has been to heal the wounds that exist particularly among our veterans and to move forward with a positive relationship ... Apparently some in the Vietnamese government don't want to do that and that's their decision.