Dear Readers,

Bill Knight, 91, died on Christmas Day at the Maine Veterans Home in Bangor.

I didn't know him. You probably didn't know him either.

He was not a big shot, a major (or minor) political figure, and he didn't win the lottery or win a race.

He was just an ordinary guy, a Navy veteran. In his later years, he was part of group of volunteers who went to the Bangor Airport and greeted American service men and women when they stepped off the plane from overseas. That group and their activities were chronicled in a documentary film called “The Way We Get By.”

Bill Knight felt it was his duty to stand in line at an airport to just say “Welcome home” to strangers. Sure he didn't know them, but they wore the uniform of the United States of America, and that was good enough for him.

A check of our nation's history will show we are pretty good at sending folks overseas to fight our battles, but not so good at welcoming them home after they turn in their uniforms.

It is a practice that began after George Washington's soldiers (with a bit of help from the French) kicked the Brits out. I seem to remember they had a problem getting Congress to pay their wages.

After World War I, when times got hard, lots of veterans marched on Washington in 1932 an attempt to convince Congress to grant them the bonuses they were promised in 1924, but couldn't collect until 1945. The government ordered Gen. Douglas MacArthur to evict them.

After World War II, our leaders finally got it right, thanks in part to the political muscle of the American Legion, when Congress enacted the GI Bill. All that did was to educate an entire generation and pave the way for a long period of prosperity.

For the troops who came home from Vietnam, it was a different story. The government educational benefits were a drop in the bucket for the vets facing soaring college costs.

And there were lots of reports of Vietnam vets being shunned by veteran's organizations that objected to their music, their long hair, their recreational activities and the fact that they didn't win that war. Few of them bothered to figure out that the ordinary GIs, the Army's privates, corporals, ordinary sailors and marines had nothing to do with that war's grand strategy, which ended up a fiasco.

Now we have veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. We have seen stories of how some of them were treated poorly at military hospitals, we have seen stories of how post traumatic stress disorder has affected some of them. Other stories talk about veteran's suicide rates.

We have even seen stories of how some employers are reluctant to hire veterans for one reason or another.

Just for the record, I'll bet any boss who hires hires a vet will quickly find out he or she made the right decision.

Our military men and women are coming home from the nation's longest wars. They deserve no less than the benefits granted to the World War II veterans dubbed the “Greatest Generation. ”

They deserve our respect, our admiration and our consideration. Our lawmakers and leaders at the state and federal level should not think twice about supporting expanded veterans benefits.

All of which brings me back to Bill Knight and the “greeters” at the Bangor Airport.

Once again, our leaders asked our military men and women to do the nation's dirty work and, once again, they came through.

Only this time, week after week, a group of Mainers, including Bill Knight, met them at the gate to welcome them home.

Now that Bill is gone, it is our turn to welcome them home.