a graduate of the pathway home originally designed by fred gusman, and now a doctoral student at martinezs of veterans who have been touched by pathway home and the work that jen, christine, jennifer all dedicated their lives to. i'm here to give thanks and grieve the loss of these three brave women who gave everything in the service of veterans. now i've seen a few of you lehe today, picked you out of the crowd. but i apologize for this, it means a lot, if you are a pathway home graduate, please stand up and be recognized. [ applause ] thank you. so one of my experiences as a veteran is noting that we receive the finest lip service in the country. bar none. the finest in the country. that's progress. politicians, pundits and ordinary people lather us up in lip service. it's confusing for a lot of folks at times. to then learn that we're still an underserviced population with challenges that go unmet. it's a point of contention then to have these personal experiences politicized. used. as i have no doubt that those of us connected to jen and christine and jennifer in the pathway home are