State Senator Andre Jacque appeared recently on the WCUB Breakfast Club and talked about a few bills in hearing this week.
One of them is the Hmong Veterans Bill. The bill would recognize the Laotian freedom fighters that assisted U.S. troops in Vietnam and then escaped to the States to avoid persecution in their homeland.
The troops engaged in firefights, assisted downed pilots, gathered vital information, and much more during the Vietnam conflict.
Jacque addressed the issue by saying recognizing these freedom fighters as American Veterans is the right thing to do.
“We have the ability at the state level to include them within our definition of veteran,” he said. “That’s something I think is long overdue. Hopefully we’ll get that done and convince the governor to put that to his budget as well. So now we have to keep it in there, and it’s also a stand-alone bill. I would love to get that passed and signed into law as soon as we can however we have to do that.”
