Demonstrators gathered Friday in front of downtown Vancouver’s Veterans of Foreign Wars Memorial Plaza to send a message that they will fight for those who fought for our freedoms.

The Trump administration’s plans to lay off 80,000 workers from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as cut veterans benefits, spurred the rally. Those gathered said the proposed benefit cuts will have irrevocable impacts on veterans.

“How dare they make us fight for what we have earned?” veteran Kimberlee Turner said.

Clark County is home to about 7 percent of Washington’s 525,000 veterans. One of them, Vietnam veteran Paul Potter, held a sign at Friday’s rally that declared, “I’m a veteran, not a sucker or a loser,” a reference to President Donald Trump’s remarks about the late Sen. John McC

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