Conley Monk: “We want to give back to the living vets who never received a parade.” The aging West Haven VA Medical Center is going to be seriously renovated and more and more affordable veterans’ housing is going to be popping up in the Elm City in the coming months and years.Those were some of the new promises made to vets in moving ceremonies Monday on a sunny afternoon of Veterans Day by the Vietnam Memorial on Long Wharf.Along with the new promises were ongoing pledges to keep battling, not just in Veterans Day rosy words, but in governmental actions to protect vets’ health, medical, and legal rights.While President-elect Trump’s notorious negative campaign remarks about veterans were not specifically referred to, the National Veterans Council for Legal Redress (NVCLR) Executive Director Garry Monk, whose organization convened Monday’s event, said that he was somewhat fearful and ​“we don’t want cuts or rollbacks of any current benefits and upgrades. “The gathering, which drew Mayor Justin Elicker and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal among other speakers, attracted some 50 people arrayed beneath an azure sky and sitting on rows of chairs set up before vendors’ tables on the sloping green grass by the harbor.It featured patriotic music, the Hillhouse High School ROTC color guard and awards presented to three individuals for their leadership and veterans advocacy.The awardees were city Director of Legislative Services Al Lucas; former Livable City Initiatiave (LCI) director and current New Haven Land Bank head Serena Neal-Sanjurjo; and New London State Rep. and House Veteran and Military Affairs Committee Chair Anthony Nolan.Founded in 1982, the NVCLR built the V‑shaped memorial on Long Wharf which honors the Vietnam War dead of New Haven and the six surrounding towns — West Haven, East Haven, North Haven, Orange, Woodbridge, and Hamden.Awardees Neal-Sanjuro, Nolan, and Lucas (far right) with Conley Monk and Mayor Elicker. The group works as a veterans’ general advocacy organization, with a special emphasis through partnership with the Yale Law School clinics on helping Black and brown vets, and all whose discharges may have been less than honorable (due to mistakes, bureaucratic error, or undiagnosed PTSD), to have those discharges upgraded.NVCLR co-founder Conley Monk said plans are just coming together to create yet a second and complementary monument directly behind the V, this one to feature the names of all living Vietnam War vets from the seven towns.“We want to give back to the living vets who never received a parade,” he said, or other appropriate gestures of gratitude and appreciation.Yale School of Architecture students and staff are involved in creating the design and the fundraising is just beginning, he added.Senator Blumenthal (right) with Vietnam War vet Anthony Beale. “In the coming months,” reported Neal-Sanjurjo in her award-acceptance remarks, ​“you can look forward to ​‘pop-ups’ of veterans’ housing around the city,” as part of a larger housing initiative.The NVCLR has purchased a sliver lot on Davenport Street in the Hill slated to be developed for vets into four apartments. The Board of Alders has also signed off on the nonprofit buying a falling down historic building at 596 – 598 George Street near Orchard cheek-by-jowl with Yale New Haven Hospital.In July 2024 the city agreed to sell George Street property to NVCLR for $6,000 on the condition that it could assemble financing.Garry Monk reported that financing is now in place and he predicted closing on that property will take place in the near future. The Davenport property, whose plan was rejected by the Board of Zoning Appeals earlier this year, due primarily to an inadequate parking plan, is being re-configured and also will be re-submitted in the coming months, Monk added.Blumenthal, meanwhile, spoke about how the rebuilding of the West Haven VA is in the works, so that the physical plant will match the hospital’s high quality of care. And in impassioned remarks, he recalled for the attentive audience the Omaha Beach vets, now nearly all close to 100 years old, whom he met in June at the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landing. At Monday's ceremony. “That was their moment to fight for and preserve democracy,” he recalled. ​“This is ours.”Mayor Elicker offered prepared remarks on how this Vets Day is different from many, if not all, the preceding, along with his take on the current state of ​“e pluribus unum.” Elicker: "Out Of Many, We Are One"Below is Mayor Elicker’s Veterans Day speech, printed in full. Today we honor our Veterans.Honoring our veterans is about coming together to thank them for their service to our country. It is about reflecting on the sacrifice they have given to protect our shared values. It’s about remembering those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for us and our country. And of course, it is about ensuring they have the support, health care, resources they need when they come home.But perhaps most importantly, we can honor our veterans best by protecting the values that they worked so hard, risked their lives, and for many, lost their lives to defend. Those values outlined in our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and our Declaration of Independence that make our country resilient, special, unique and strong. We, as Americans, have a responsibility and a duty to protect those values and that duty is one we must uphold each day – in the way we conduct ourselves, in the way we engage with one another, in the way we inform ourselves, in the way we cast our vote.E pluribus unum, a traditional motto of our nation. Out of many, we are one. Out of many, we are one. I think many of us, perhaps most of us, in our nation today would agree we are not feeling like we are one. We are certainly many, but are we one? The beauty of our nation, as history would show, is that while we may come from many backgrounds, ethnicities, faiths, and while we may disagree on many policies, we share common values that hold our country together – that we collectively choose our leaders, that we respect the results of elections even when we may not like the outcome, that we support the peaceful transfer of power, that we don’t persecute one another because they may disagree with us, because they make look differently than us, because they may practice a different religion than us, or choose a different person to love. We are many, but we are one because we share a common belief in the freedoms that have been granted to us under our Constitution and have been defended over several centuries by our veterans and our nation’s leaders. Our nation has been founded on a common belief that, even though we are individuals, we can work as one – in fact it is because we are individuals, with differences, we make a better one.Today we have grand challenges to tackle together – nations at war, a rapidly changing climate, so much information and misinformation out there, those working to undermine our democracy by making us believe lies and mistruths, those who work to divide us rather than unify us. It is in this environment that our work as citizens is much harder but ever more important. To be critical thinkers, seek out accurate information to educate us on how we make the right choices, to have the humility to change our thinking, the humility to listen to one another. So we can continue to be a nation of many, who are also one.And so today, on this veterans day, we honor our veterans. They fought for us. We are deeply grateful for their service. Without them, we might be here today, but surely we would not have the freedoms that they fought so hard to protect. And as we honor them today, we must work to honor what our veterans have done for us, by working every day, stiving with all our integrity, to nurture and protect the nation and its values, our values, that they fought so hard to protect.