One of us is a veteran of the Vietnam War, honorably serving in the Army for three years. One of us had the honor to serve veterans, fighting for their housing and veterans benefits rights for about a decade as a legal aid attorney.

We both served in leadership during the last legislative term, one as speaker of the New Hampshire House and one as majority leader of the New Hampshire Senate. We both worked hard early this last year to specifically protect our veterans from COVID at the New Hampshire Veterans Home.

Working together, we passed legislation to deal with a worst-in-the-nation COVID crisis in long-term care and nursing homes in New Hampshire, including specifically protecting veterans and workers at the New Hampshire Veterans Home. Our legislation required an independent, outside review of what went wrong in our long-term care facilities and nursing homes, a needs assessment for another wave of COVID, and the funding to get the job done. It required the independent review and needs assessment completed by Oct. 2, so the funding allocated could be put to work in advance of another wave of COVID in our long-term care facilities and nursing homes, including the New Hampshire Veterans Home.

It was House Bill 1246. It was needed and necessary. It was about transparency and preventative action – for our seniors, for our veterans. It was vetoed by Gov. Chris Sununu in July.

The aftermath was predictable and heartbreaking. As a consequence of Gov. Sununu’s veto and inaction, a devastating outbreak is ripping through our New Hampshire Veterans Home, killing at least 35 veterans that we have been told about. Now, our veterans deserve immediate protection, and they and their families deserve accountability.

Unfortunately, that accountability certainly isn’t coming from the news media. As far as we can tell, there have been no news reports of Gov. Sununu’s veto of House Bill 1246 relating to what is happening at the New Hampshire Veterans Home, including nothing from WMUR, which happens to regularly host Gov. Sununu’s often political press conferences on statewide TV.

As a consequence, citizens and advocates and legislators who worked to protect our veterans can and must speak out. That’s because the sad reality is the person who is accountable and the person who can and should respond to the crisis at the New Hampshire Veterans Home – the governor – only really responds to public pressure, caring much more about what is said on the nightly news or in the newspaper than what is said in actual legislation. We refuse to be silenced.

Now, the governor is avoiding accountability by evading right-to-know requests on the crisis, by refusing to discuss any concrete plan to address the crisis, and often saying he is asking for help from the U.S. Veterans Administration.

Let’s avoid any confusion and be abundantly clear: The New Hampshire Veterans Home is New Hampshire’s responsibility, not the U.S. Veterans Administration.

Real leadership requires real transparency, real accountability, and real action. Our veterans, their families, and all of us, should demand nothing less.

(Steve Shurtleff and Dan Feltes live in Concord.)