Particularly for this committee, I would say that if you talk to veterans, you'll hear that they want recognition. How do we recognize their efforts when we send them overseas? How do we recognize their sacrifices? There are things such as an Afghanistan memorial that's being debated, I think, at this stage in the game.
You can talk to a younger veteran—certainly not me—but somebody who has been in Afghanistan recently. First off, they don't consider themselves to be veterans, because veterans are that generation.... When you say to them that they've done their service and they're out of the military now, and you ask them what they would like to have happen, they say, “We just want to be recognized for our sacrifices and for the duty we did.”
That's all it is. It's the recognition, whether it be a public or a private recognition. They do get a medal for their service in a combat theatre, but it's about that public recognition and the acceptance of the fact that they went there and did a job that not many Canadians volunteered to do. That's really what they want: recognition.