DUBUQUE, Iowa — November 11, 2026 — Today is Veterans Day, and Dubuque In Pursuit News wants to say something simple, and mean it: thank you.

Thank you to the men and women from Dubuque and the tri-state area who put on the uniform and went where their country asked them to go. Thank you to the ones who came home and built lives here — who raised families, opened businesses, coached Little League, and showed up for their neighbors. And thank you to the ones who never came home, whose names live on in the hearts of the families they left behind and in the freedom the rest of us get to take for granted.

Veterans Day began as a day to mark the end of the First World War, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. More than a century later, it still asks the same small thing of us: stop, remember, and say thank you to someone who served.

Most veterans never ask for thanks. They will tell you they were just doing their job, or that the real heroes are the ones who didn’t make it back. That humility is part of what makes them worth honoring. They gave up birthdays and holidays, missed the births of their children, stood watch through long nights far from home — and most of them would do it again.

Here in Dubuque, you don’t have to look far to find them. They are the neighbor down the street, the co-worker at the next desk, the grandfather at the kitchen table who doesn’t talk much about where he was or what he saw. This week, if you see one of them, take a moment. Shake a hand. Look them in the eye and say the two words that never get old: thank you.

To every veteran reading this — Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Space Force, National Guard, and Reserves — from all of us at Dubuque In Pursuit News: we see you, we are grateful, and we will not forget.

Happy Veterans Day. God bless our veterans, and God bless America.

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