My husband Ryan served 12 years with the Army National Guard and made sergeant. The injury came on a training jump: a blow to the head on the way out the door. At 33, doctors identified a rare genetic form of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, which the injury accelerated. Today at 36, his home is a memory care unit.
I was carrying our third baby, five months along, as the changes took hold. I set aside my social work job. We sold our house in Florida and resettled in Algonquin near my parents. Three young children, one husband in long-term care, one person coordinating it all.
I am among the roughly 14.3 million Americans caring for a wounded, ill or injured service member or veteran. As a 2025 Dole Caregiver fellow with the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, I met many Illinoisans who are in the same boat, facing the same struggles. The proposed omnibus package Take Care of America’s Veterans Act would go a long way in helping us.
Several particular components of the legislation are especially important to my family. The Precision Brain Health Research Act would fund federal studies of traumatic brain injury and how it connects to dementia and push the Department of Veterans Affairs and Defense Department to share what they find. Ryan may not benefit, but the next soldier who lands wrong might.
The Sharri Briley and Eric Edmundson Veterans Benefits Expansion Act would raise support for the most catastrophically injured veterans and give surviving spouses and children a raise they have not seen in three decades. Many caregivers eventually become survivors. We should not have to choose between paying for care and keeping a home.
The Veteran Caregiver Reeducation, Reemployment, and Retirement Act would help caregivers rebuild what caregiving costs us: a job, an income, a retirement.
Finally, the Major Richard Star Act would end the wounded veteran tax that takes earned retirement pay from combat-injured retirees. My household gains nothing from it. Thousands of Illinois veterans do, and I want it passed.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., has spent her career making sure the caregivers, survivors and veterans who came after her are not left to manage alone. We are lucky she is ours. I am asking her, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and the rest of our delegation to vote for this bill.
Liana Redshaw, Algonquin
Arts are a moneymaking draw
Think back to the last creative experience that moved you: a neighborhood festival, a concert, a museum visit, or even a song playing through your headphones. Now think about how many people helped make that experience possible.
Art often feels effortless, but behind every creative experience is a vast network of workers, businesses, nonprofits, artists and institutions.
For me, this work is personal. My daughter has built a career as a professional musician, so I have seen firsthand the dedication, discipline and sacrifice it takes to pursue a life in the arts. I also understand how important it is for artists to have an ecosystem that values their talent and provides opportunities to build sustainable careers.
New data from Arts Alliance Illinois demonstrates just how important that ecosystem is to our economy.
Chicago’s creative economy supports more than 212,000 jobs, making it the city’s third-largest industry, surpassing education services, retail and manufacturing. It generates nearly $50 billion annually and contributes $5.7 billion in tax revenue. Statewide, more than 734,000 Illinoisans work in creative industries, generating $148 billion in economic activity.
The impact reaches far beyond the creative sector. Every dollar generated by Chicago’s creative economy produces an additional 38 cents elsewhere in the local economy. Statewide, that figure rises to 95 cents.
When someone attends a concert, gallery opening, theater performance or cultural event, they are also supporting restaurants, hotels, transportation and other nearby businesses.
Yet too many artists and creative workers still earn below a living wage, putting Illinois at risk of losing talent to other states.
For too long, arts and culture have been treated as recreational or optional. They are neither.
As a legislator, chair of the House Museums, Arts, Culture and Entertainment Committee, and a member of the Illinois Creative Caucus, I believe this data gives us a powerful tool to advance policies that recognize the creative sector for what it is: essential economic infrastructure.
Investing in the creative economy means investing in jobs, neighborhoods, tourism, small businesses and Illinois’ competitiveness.
The creative sector is not a luxury. It is one of the pillars of Chicago’s economy, and it is time we treated it that way.
State Rep. Kimberly Neely du Buclet, D-Chicago
Chicago flexes its musical muscles
Freelancer Graham Meyer’s recent piece on Chicago’s influential role on musicals was wonderfully detailed and informative. It reminded me of having seen the excellent “Spamalot” in Chicago during its pre-Broadway run. I believe a couple songs were cut from that version before it went to New York. I experienced the same with Paradise Square, a musical about the little-known history of an Irish and Black neighborhood in New York prior to the Civil War. Chicagoans were treated to advance viewing, and as Meyer notes, our response shaped the creative design of those shows prior to their New York debuts.
Bill Esler, West Town
Take preventive steps to save pets
Owner surrenders at Chicago Animal Care and Control jumped 265% last year, with intake climbing past 56 animals a day. The city’s other open-admission shelter, the Anti-Cruelty Society, closed its doors to new animals for two weeks in June. It’s part of a national pattern.
Most of us don’t think of ourselves as the kind of people who’d surrender our pets, as we consider them family. But a 2025 PetSmart Charities and Gallup study found 52% of pet owners skipped or declined necessary veterinary care within the year, with 71% citing money as a factor. That’s not cruelty. It’s what happens when loving an animal like a child collides with today’s economics.
Monthly wellness plans, insurance and preventive care can greatly mitigate these costs.
I know it personally. I adopted a dog named Shirley, a Weimaraner mix who leaned her whole body against people’s legs for attention. Not long after, she got sick with ehrlichiosis, a tick-borne infection that had quietly done damage before we caught it. The animal hospital gave me a number: roughly $25,000 to keep her alive.
Thankfully, I remembered I had pet insurance (this was before I worked in the industry), and it was the only reason she received the necessary care. They treated her, and we got six more months together before the disease returned. I came home to find her collapsed on the floor. We had about 10 minutes together. She passed peacefully in my arms.
Monthly tick prevention costs only $25 to $50. It might have saved her.
The shelters filling up are proof of the gap between how we feel about our pets and what we’re able to give them. If you’re considering adopting, try fostering first. Encourage friends to adopt. And arm yourself with the right resources, such as wellness visits, vaccines and pet insurance, before the day it suddenly becomes urgent.
We call them our children. Let’s start acting like it. Let’s clear the shelters.
Steve Schonberg, New York City
A raw deal for ‘We the People’
Free of charge, We the People provides police to keep Donald Trump safe and secure. Safe and secure, Trump uses police to terrorize, criminalize, disappear, subjugate, suppress, tyrannize, and at times, kill We the People.
Free of charge, We the People provide Trump with unlimited excellent healthcare. He uses his resulting good health to deny and deprive healthcare and life to We the People.
It can be said that We the People of the United States democratically elected Trump to be president and try to take good care of him by providing police to keep him safe and unlimited free healthcare to keep him healthy. But he betrays We the People by using his presidency and the good care that We the People provide him by dismantling We the People’s democracy and transforming this democratic U.S. into a dictatorship.
Ultimately, it can be said that We the People enable and allow Trump to physically, mentally and spiritually abuse, misuse, exploit and tyrannize We the People. In other words, We the People give Trump a good life, and in return Trump gives We the People a bad life and in some cases, death.
Don Buss, Waukegan
Shame on Trump
When I was a schoolboy, we were taught to use the acronym “HOMES” to remind us of the names of the five great lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. But with the president embarrassingly renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America, that word no longer works; we need to switch out the letter “o” with an “a.” I suppose we can use the acronym “SHAME.” Since the vast majority of the lake’s surface area and shoreline mileage lie on the Ontario side of the international border, renaming is indeed shameful, making this new acronym very appropriate.
Mike Sinner, West Ridge
Kudos to Steinberg’s restraint
I commend Neil Steinberg on his discipline and restraint in writing about voting being wrecked in a recent column.. When I write about Donald Trump and his coterie, the U.S. Supreme Court and elections, I use lots and lots of dirty words.
Kevin Kann, Libertyville
O’Hare train plan is off the rails
Fifteen minutes from Downtown to O’Hare Airport by train ? I don’t think so.
When the private backers of this fantasy project appear before City Council, I hope they can keep a straight face. I have dealt with numerous railroads during my career, and there is no way on Earth that you can safely operate a train traveling at grade level, involving three different railroads, with multiple interchanges that can get you from Downtown to O’Hare.
I assume that the private equity group floating this project also believes in Santa Claus.
Bruce Nathanson, Glenview
Score one for pettiness
As a lifelong Chicago sports fan, I am deeply disappointed by how The Score handled the firing of Mike Mulligan. Dropping a 23-year station veteran over the weekend without letting him say a proper on-air goodbye to his loyal audience was completely classless.
This corporate behavior puts fans like me in an unfair position. I grew up admiring the Payton family legacy and want to support Jarrett Payton in his new morning role. However, management’s rude treatment of “Mully” makes me question if I want to support this station at all. Instead of enthusiastically telling people that Payton is on morning radio, the conversation now centers on how bogus the station was to a local legend.
The mature move would be for management to invite Mully back for a final farewell segment to give fans the closure they deserve.
Christopher Collins Sr., Schaumburg
Ideology shouldn’t trump fair play
Questioning whether biological sex matters in athletic competition is often treated as controversial. That strikes me as putting ideology ahead of observable reality.
If the goal is to persuade the public that gender identity alone should determine participation in every aspect of society, sports is the least convincing place to make that case. Athletic competition exists precisely because physical differences matter. Separate men’s and women’s divisions were created to ensure fair competition.
No matter how sincerely someone identifies, biology continues to influence athletic performance. Ignoring that reality won’t make it disappear. In the end, facts have a way of asserting themselves, and public policy that denies them is unlikely to endure.
Scott T. Thompson, Bloomington, Indiana
Too much basketball drama
Is it me, or has the WNBA become the new women’s roller derby, women’s pro wrestling and “Dr. Phil” show?”
John J. Karcz, Lemont