The best Veterans Day honor anyone can provide a returning veteran is a good job. Here’s the story of Helmets to Hardhats doing just that.

Today, the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that killed thousands and destroyed the World Trade Center, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney issued a statement that forgot to mention the heroic first responders, including 343 Fire Fighters (IAFF) members who lost their lives trying to save others. In 2010, Paul Ryan voted three times against providing health care for surviving first responders and other survivors of the World Trade Center attack.

As millions of Americans took a moment this morning to remember the tragedy that occurred 11 years ago on Sept. 11 in New York City, Virginia and Pennsylvania, military veterans who’ve found careers through the Ironworkers, Laborers (LiUNA), Heat and Frost Insulators and Bricklayers (BAC) are rebuilding the World Trade Center in New York.

Take a minute to watch the YouTube video in the post. 

 Other unions spoke out in honor of those who lost their lives on 9/11 and the members who made a difference that day:

William Plotner waited for his daughter’s second birthday to enroll in the military on Sept. 11, 2004—three years after the World Trade Center twin towers fell. He wanted his daughter to remember the significance of her birth date. But most of all, he wanted her to think of him as a hero. Now Plotner, a U.S. Army veteran and member of the Laborers (LIUNA) Local 79, is rebuilding the World Trade Center.

Says Plotner:

On 9-11-04 I swore in. And now I get to work here. It brings, like, another sense of pride.