President Joe Biden bid farewell to the U.S. armed forces in his final Veterans Day remarks at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday.
“This is the last time I will stand here at Arlington as commander-in-chief,” Biden said from the Memorial Amphitheater. “It’s been the greatest honor of my life to lead you, to serve you, to care for you, to defend you, just as you defended us generation after generation after generation.”
Biden was joined by Vice President Kamala Harris, their first joint appearance since last week’s loss. Second gentleman Doug Emhoff, first lady Jill Biden, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough and top military officials also attended.
In his speech, the president brought up the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which led to the death of 13 U.S. service members, saying that he didn’t want the next president to be responsible for it: “Four presidents faced a decision after we’d got [Osama] bin Laden, whether to end our longest war in history in Afghanistan. I was determined not to leave it to the fifth.”
But he also signaled that he would try to stay engaged for the rest of his time in the White House.
Biden committed to expanding the coverage of the PACT Act, legislation aimed to expand healthcare access for veterans exposed to toxic chemicals and their families, to include a “number of cancers” — and he committed to expanding coverage for veterans who were harmed by toxins at Karshi-Khanabad Air Base in Uzbekistan by the end of his term.
“We’re the only nation in the world built on an idea,” Biden said, concluding his remarks. “Every other nation is based on things like geography, ethnicity, religion. But we’re the only nation, the only one in the world, built on an idea. That idea is we’re all created equal.”
