Last month, on July 1, my husband Tyler and I celebrated 10 years of marriage in our home near Denver. Two decades earlier and half a world away, Tyler was on a rescue mission with the 173rd Airborne when he was shot four times. The first bullet paralyzed him instantly from the mid-chest down. The second left him fighting for his life on a mountainside in Afghanistan. As he lay there, both of our lives were unknowingly changed forever.

Ten years of marriage and two boys later, life does not look the same. We have lived our vows over and over, and this caregiver life keeps reminding us of one truth: the battle doesn’t end when they come home. I recently left my career as a firefighter to care for Tyler. It is a 24-hour role, and as his needs change, our lives change with it.

That is why the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act means so much to us. For families like ours, this legislative package contains support for which we have waited decades. The heart of this bill is the Sharri Briley and Eric Edmundson Veterans Benefits Expansion Act, which would strengthen support for the most catastrophically injured veterans, like Tyler and for the survivors that too many caregivers become. Other provisions reach our daily lives too, from expanded mental healthcare to adaptive sports equipment that keeps a wounded veteran in the game with his or her kids.

The same package would finally right another wrong for veterans wounded in combat, like Tyler. Section 101 of the bill is the Major Richard Star Act, which would let service members medically retired for combat injuries before they reached 20 years of service keep both the military retirement pay they earned and the VA disability compensation they were promised, instead of watching one cancel out the other. For a family that traded two incomes for round-the-clock care, that offset is not an abstraction. It is money that would help cover the therapies, the equipment and the everyday costs that come with catastrophic injury — support Colorado families have been told to go without for far too long.

The same bill would help caregivers stay whole. The Veteran Caregiver Reeducation, Reemployment and Retirement Act would help those of us who stepped away from a career rebuild the work and retirement we set down. For me, that is the firefighting I loved.

Some worry a bill like this asks future veterans to shoulder the cost. I understand that fear. But I have spent my life fighting so the families who come after mine won’t have to. This is not a burden we hand down. It is a promise we finally keep.

We have made change before. When Tyler’s wounds meant we could not have children without IVF, we were told, “thank you for your service, but you are on your own.” So, we went to Washington and helped win IVF access for veterans, then did it again in Colorado.

If any fix in Washington should be easy, it is this one. More than 300 members of the House and over three-quarters of the U.S. Senate have signed on to the Major Richard Star Act, Republicans and Democrats alike. And yet, year after year, it still has not crossed the finish line. Think about that: a reform this popular, this bipartisan, this plainly right and Colorado families like mine are still waiting. If not now, when? Every month of delay is another month a wounded veteran and the caregiver at his or her side go without what they earned. Colorado’s leaders do not have to accept that. They can be the ones who finally get it done and also take decisive action on dozens of other lifesaving bills at the same time.

Now I am asking Colorado’s leaders, and every member of Congress, to cast their vote and do right by the constituents counting on them across this nation. Pass the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act.

Here is the truth my family lives every day: when you support the caregiver, you support the veteran. And when that happens, you strengthen the entire community.

Crystal Wilson is a 2020 Dole Caregiver Fellow with the Elizabeth Dole Foundation. She lives near Denver with her husband, Tyler, a combat-wounded Army veteran of the 173rd Airborne, and their two sons.