On Memorial Day, and on Veterans Day, the men and women who stood in the service of the country are lauded, and a grateful nation honors them, as well as the memory of those who died in that service.

We do this not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because those who may be called to service at some point … young men and women … need to see how veterans are treated in order for them to be willing to make that sacrifice.

On Monday, there will be parades, Souza tunes, flags, and wreaths laid at soldiers’ tombs. People will bow their heads for a moment of silence in the memory of those who fought and died, before going home to a barbecue and the kick-off of summer. But this year, a lot of that ritual will ring just a little bit hollow.

This will be the first Memorial Day after the Veterans Administration became embroiled in a scandal beyond comprehension. Hospitals faced with waiting lists they could not meet in a timely fashion, shunted veterans seeking medical care to a second “waiting list” that was simply ignored. At least 40 veterans died while waiting for the care they were promised and never received.

No one is certain yet whether this happened in a couple of isolated hospitals or was a systemic issue at the VA, although an audit is now underway. But for an agency that had just only recently emerged from other scandals, including the Walter Reed Army Medical Center neglect scandal of 2004-2007, the current mess is an outrage.

Unlike other issues — Benghazi, the rollout of the Affordable Care website — that have plagued the Obama administration, this one is a legitimate threat to the administration’s credibility. But worse, it is a threat to the military enlistment system itself.

When Vietnam vets returned home from that unpopular war, they were met with unguarded hostility from the public and indifference from the federal government. It took many years for Agent Orange, a defoliant used in the jungles, to be considered a threat to their health; their mental health issues and substance abuse issues were ignored. Many are homeless today. Veterans make up 25 percent of the homeless population, and as of 1996, 47 percent of homeless veterans had served in the Vietnam War. Enlistments — for the draft had been ended in 1973 — dropped like a stone, despite numerous incentives to sign up.

The American public soon wised up; in future conflicts they were ashamed of their Vietnam-era behavior — toward mostly draftees — and began treating veterans with the respect they are owed. But the VA was slow to respond to issues such as post traumatic stress disorder, Agent Orange, depleted uranium concerns, and traumatic brain injury. By 2006, only 1,652 troops had been officially diagnosed with TBI, while existing data from hospitals and nursing homes suggested that the number was at least 100 times that.

The reason is clear; TBI and PTSD aren’t easy to treat, cost a great deal, take a long time to heal, and soldiers with the conditions are less likely to be sent back to active combat zones. While amazing things were being done with other injuries, including incredible advances in prosthetics, the VA has not dealt with the fallout from asymmetrical warfare well.

But they absolutely must do better. Veterans who have given so much in the service of the country deserve to have their health needs met without question or subterfuge. Calculating the cost to go to war means more than having new planes and fresh soldiers, it means being prepared to pay the costs for each of those soldiers’ lifetimes if need be.

At the parades, young people who will make up tomorrow’s military must see more than a few older gentlemen wearing a uniform they’ve been storing for decades. They must see that we as a nation honor our veterans where it really counts — in their health care needs, for as long as it takes.