David Morgan may be gone, but he is not forgotten. A brand new house for homeless veterans in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania bears a proud plaque with his name on it.

A U.S. Navy veteran, Morgan died in August 2013 from complications after traumatic brain injury sustained while serving in Kuwait in 2009. According to the Times Leader, Mayor Tom Leighton thought that connecting Morgan with the new home would be a fitting tribute.

"I didn't think for one second who I was going to name this for. I knew exactly who it was going to be for. It was going to be for David Morgan," Leighton said.

Charlie Morgan appreciated Leighton for recognizing his son. "Knowing Dave, he'd be really honored to do this and me and his mother, we just can't get over this," he said. "This is a great honor."

Earlier this week, city officials and members of Volunteers of America of Pennsylvania came together to inaugurate the David C. Morgan House. Once the home is fully complete, a veteran and their family will be able to move in. So far this year, the VOAPA has purchased 12 housing units all over the state as part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' Homeward Bound program.

Leighton told the Citizens Voice that Wilkes-Barre has been doing its best to exceed the challenge established by President Barack Obama to end veteran homelessness through a Department of Housing and Urban Development initiative. So far, four city properties have been put to use. Some, like the home named for Morgan, were donated to the city after the bank foreclosed on them. However they are obtained, they are put to good use in housing homeless veterans.

In a historic moment, the Department of Veterans Affairs has decided to provide robotic legs to veterans paralyzed by spinal cord injuries. The move could help many veterans who thought they'd never walk again regain their freedom of movement.

For years, veterans have petitioned the VA to provide the costly exoskeleton, which at $77,000 is much too expensive for most former servicemembers to afford. CBS News reported in 2014 that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first-of-its-kind robotic legs, called the ReWalk system, after it proved incredibly successful with paralyzed patients.

"I'm just so excited; I wish I had it on," said Robert Woo – who was crippled after his construction trailer was crushed by seven tons of falling steel – at the time of the approval. "I could just jump up and down. It's a great leap forward for a lot of us who are confined to wheelchairs."

On Dec. 10, the Associated Press was informed by the VA that it had distributed a memorandum to its staff on ReWalk program training.

Dr. Ann Spungen, lead researcher on the VA's team, said that "The research support and effort to provide eligible veterans with paralysis an exoskeleton for home use is a historic move on the part of the VA because it represents a paradigm shift in the approach to rehabilitation for persons with paralysis."

So far, 45 paralyzed veterans fitting the height and weight requirements have been tested for exoskeletons, which feature motion-sensitive motorized joints that respond to the wearer's balance and upper-body movements.

Former Army corporal Gene Laureano thought he would never walk again in his life after service. "I just kept remembering the doctor told me it was impossible for me to walk, and then I crossed that threshold from the impossible to the possible," he told the AP. "The tears came down. I hadn't spoken to somebody standing up in so long."

Just in time for the holidays, a group of homeless women veterans in Western Massachusetts have found themselves a home. In Northampton, a brand new, $1.7 million residence for women veterans was just opened by Soldier On, a private nonprofit advocating for veterans. With 16 individual apartments, plus a host of other amenities, the building will stand as a safe place for women to seek shelter and care in their life after service, according to the Boston Globe.

More than 4,000 women accounted for about 9 percent of all homeless veterans in 2015, the Globe reported, citing data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Despite that number being in line with their representation in the armed forces, women veterans are more likely to be homeless than men.

"Women come to us incredibly broken," Sara Scoco, Soldier On's women's program director, told the Globe. "All of our women experienced trauma before the military – childhood abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse. Many of them went into the military to escape trauma and were re-traumatized instead."

At Soldier On's new center, all programs are run exclusively by women. New additions like an arts and crafts room and yoga center are soon to arrive. WWLP reported that the 12 women who arrived on Tuesday are finally receiving the thanks and attention they deserve.

"We should not have any veteran living on the street," said Kathy Copeland, a homeless veteran and new resident. "These are people signing a blank check up to, and including, our lives for this country. And then to come back and not have the assets available to us."

Now, with Soldier On's help, Copeland and others like her have a place where they can heal both their physical and emotional wounds.

Though women make up roughly 50 percent of the workforce, they are paid almost 20 percent less than their male coworkers, as reported by the Institute for Women's Policy Research. The gender wage gap has been a topic of debate for many years now, but one sector has already achieved equal pay. Women in the U.S. military are paid the same as men in the same roles.

This is because the military offers a base salary for specific positions, and that only changes if a soldier is promoted. Previously, some might have argued that women were still at a disadvantage for equal pay, even in the military, because they were not able to advance the same way as male soldiers.

Since the Defense Secretary's announcement on Dec. 3, all combat positions are open to women. This means that those female soldiers have the same opportunities for promotion as every other servicemember. In addition to this historic change, the fact that the military must report the predetermined pay grades publicly means that female soldiers will be less likely to experience pay discrimination, according to Quartz. 

The military is far from perfect in gender equality, but they offer a solid platform for more equal pay.

Bud Shepherd is familiar with the kinds of stress and danger war puts veterans through. In 1944, he was the tail gunner of a B-17 flying over Germany.

"They were shooting those 88mm at us and we had a shell go through the outer portion of the right wing on the airplane – left a big hole," Shepherd told Fox 8. "We lost three engines over the target. And then we started losing altitude and we flew for, oh maybe, two hours on one engine. We got back within 30 miles of France and that engine just quit – it just stopped like you turn a light switch off."

Shepherd and the others survived the descent only to be captured by the Germans when they reached the ground. For months he was held captive as a prisoner of war. When he returned to the States, he founded the Resources Exchanged Association, a company that sells food and other life essentials at low prices to help Americans, especially soldiers and their families.

Helping soldiers gave Shepherd the inspiration for another project – lending a hand to wounded veterans. Soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with wounds sometimes have their homes redesigned to accommodate their disabilities, so Shepherd decided that they could use the right tools to get the job done. The Reach Wounded Warrior Veterans Program was born.

Stephen Baker, who works at the program with Shepherd, helps deliver the deluxe toolboxes to veterans personally. "Seeing their face when you give it to them, even though it's just a toolbox with $800 worth of tools…they're thankful, they tear up, they always want their kids in the picture when we take one, because they say, 'I'm going to pass this down to my son,'" said Baker.

To assist veterans with a different kind of pursuit, the Veterans Outreach Center in Rochester, New York will make hundreds of donated suits, pants, vests and sports coats available to area veterans. Free tools and suits give veterans a chance to get a leg up on their life after service, both professionally and personally. 

At the time of year when Americans are stringing Christmas lights, one organization was putting together a national effort to commemorate fallen soldiers with graveside wreaths. On Saturday, Wreaths Across America completed its mission of laying more than 900,000 wreaths on the graves of military veterans, not only nationwide, but all around the world. The annual community-oriented tradition, started in 1992 by Maine business owner Rob Worcester, traveled to over 1,000 national cemeteries and an additional 25 overseas. 

"It's tremendous; there's a lot of help involved," Worcester told USA Today. "We have 320 trucks from about 150 volunteer truck companies."

Saturday marked the finale of a week long journey from Maine to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. "One part of Wreaths Across America day is an honor convoy that goes directly to Arlington (Cemetery). The 12-truck convoy takes six days (with) stops at schools, veterans' homes and other community centers," said Worcester. 

U.S. congressman – and former Navy SEAL – Rep. Ryan Zinke was on hand with thousands of other volunteers on Saturday to help distribute the wreaths. According to The Hill, Zinke served in the Iraq War and spent more than 23 years in the Navy. He felt it was his duty in his life after service to be in Arlington. Looking out at the thousands of graves, he was well aware of the human cost they represented.

"We often fight wars with our young," he said. "That's the sacrifice." 

Adorning Arlington's graves is just one way of making sure those sacrifices are not forgotten. Since 2007, when Wreaths Across America went non-profit, the number of distributed wreaths has skyrocketed from 30,000 to the more than 900,000 wreaths laid this year. 

During the holidays, everyone wants to know that someone is thinking about them, and servicemembers are no different. That is why two Massachusetts natives, Emily Spencer and Lauren Eliopoulos, joined their nonprofits to gather holiday cards for soldiers and veterans.

Both women have personal ties to the Armed Forces and founded military-focused organizations to show their support of the troops. Every year since 2012, they have joined efforts to do something even more special. Spencer and Eliopoulos send out an annual request for holiday cards for the troops and veterans, according to Boston.com. This event is called Mission: Holiday Cards, and this year, the women received more cards than ever before.

"The fact that we've received cards from all 50 states and four countries, is insane," Spencer told CBS Boston.

A recent Facebook post from Eliopoulos' Hero Helpers of America page tallied the total number of cards up to 317,000. Boston.com reported that half of the cards will be distributed to the Fisher House medical facility in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, and the other half will be sent overseas to deployed soldiers. 

For some, the best way to honor veterans is with the wind in their hair and the roar of their bike below them. Sunday was the 15th annual Vet's Christmas Charity Ride in Columbia, South Carolina, and it was by all accounts the biggest ever recorded.

According to The State, more than 7,000 riders showed up – at least 1,000 more than attended last year – ready and willing to share the holiday spirit with veterans at the Dorn VA Medical Center.

Army veteran Jim Wertman founded the event in 2000 with the help of Earl Smalls Jr. and Gene Royer.

"It was really sad to see these vets in the hospital," said Royer. "Some of them don't have family, some of them don't have Christmas. So we decided to start a Christmas ride. It's been getting bigger and bigger every year."

Many of the charity riders are veterans who have committed to giving back in their life after service. They were joined by military vehicles from the Vietnam era as they journeyed from Northeast Richland to the VA hospital in Lower Richland. Their arrival was met with waving flags. Shortly after, they distributed enough presents to fill an entire room. 

The gifts sought most by Vet's Christmas Charity Ride – which ended up coming in from all over South Carolina – included clothing, winter gear, backpacks, hats, gift cards and radios, according to WLTX 19. 

Gene Royer's brother, a Vietnam veteran, told The State that "It's important to me to give back to the veterans, that the veterans don't get treated the way we got treated when we got back from Vietnam. I'll be doing this until the day before I die, to make sure that new veterans and old veterans never get treated that way again." 

In the 1990s, North Korea began to return many of the remains of American soldiers from the Korean War. Many of these servicemembers had been declared Missing in Action or Killed in Combat decades before. One of these men was Robert Dakin.

According to ABC News, Dakin served in the Korean War but went missing at the age of 22. Dakin had been fighting in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir when he disappeared. The military later declared he was killed in action, but Dakin's body was never returned home. 

Dakin's remains were recently identified using DNA analysis, as reported by Fox 59 News. The soldier was brought home 65 years after he initially went missing. 

On Dec. 12, Dakin's flag-draped coffin was pulled through the streets of downtown Waltham, Massachusetts as the soldier was taken to his final resting place, according to the Boston Globe. The news source stated that hundreds watched and waved flags or held "Welcome home" signs as the casket passed. 

Dakin's family was present for the ceremony and the burial and were presented with the servicemember's Purple Heart medal. 

It's been warmer than usual in much of the northeast this year, but New Englanders know that winter is coming. That's why the New England Center and Home for Veterans distributed heavy winter coats to 60 former servicemembers on Sunday morning, along with gift bags full of hats, socks and sweatshirts.

According to the Boston Globe, a big crowd of veterans and volunteers gathered together for the annual giveaway event. Some volunteers were surprised by just how much the donations meant.

"Most people aren't grateful to have a jacket," volunteer Kelsey Murphy told the Globe. "They just expect to have one. And then you come here and you see all these people who don't."

The event was put together by Rolling Thunder, an advocacy group dedicated to bringing the plight of prisoners of war and those warriors still missing in action to light. 

Rolling Thunder had a busy weekend. Before their Boston chapter distributed coats on Sunday, another chapter assisted Wreaths Across America at the Somerset Hills Memorial Park in New Jersey on Saturday. MyCentralJersey.com reported that at noon, the group helped adorn the graves of 1,400 veterans after local students sang the National Anthem. 

Many Rolling Thunder chapters participated in the annual event, which commemorates the sacrifices of the fallen with hundreds of thousands of wreaths.