gratitude -- it was so inspiring across illinois going to many homecoming ceremonies in urbana, and freeport, in kankakee and chicago, to see our soldiers come marching home and to see them welcomed by our citizenry, the men and women of our state who understand how important it is to protect our democracy. and i think related to that is we always have in our state the very best programs in our states for our veterans. as we go through this year, we want to always make sure the programs we have to help our veterans, our service members, and their families are always there for them. we of programs like our war your assistance program in illinois -- all of our national guard members receive help from this. posttraumatic stress disorder is a signature injury of this war, the two wars we are in. it's very important that any person from our state who serves in the military, when they come back home if they have need of any kind of counseling, they get that. and we will provide that. i made sure in our budget last year when there was an effort to cut this program that that would not be cut. it wil