Veterans applaud at an Oct. 8 campaign event in Swanton, Ohio, for Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan. Health care and unemployment are among veterans' chief concerns this election season, and both the Obama and the Romney campaigns have offered solutions.

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The winner of this fall's presidential election, whether it's Mitt Romney or President Obama, will face a duty. A duty to honor the nation's obligations to some two million veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For our series Solve This, where we look at the candidates' solutions to the nation's problems, NPR's Quil Lawrence visited members of a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Florida. And he discovered they had some very specific questions for the candidates.

QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: Orange Park is just south of Jacksonville, Florida, a town built around Navy and Air Force bases. The VFW here is smoky and loud with conversation between veterans from many different wars.

Veterans in Orange Park, and across the country, have a whole range of concerns: the high rate of suicide, special challenges for women veterans. But the main questions are about health care - more on that in a minute - and jobs. Veterans' unemployment clocked in this month about 2 percentage points worse than the national average. Vets want solutions.

ELISA ROSEMOND: My name is Elisa Rosemond. I was with the Air Force Reserves. And my question is how you're going to help the troops coming home, active and reserve, find a job that they can support their families with?

LAWRENCE: In a speech to the American Legion in August, Governor Romney addressed that issue.

MITT ROMNEY: And to make it easier for veterans to find employment in skilled trades, I'll work with the states to create a common credentialing and licensing standard and encourage organizations to recognize and grant credit for military training.

LAWRENCE: And President Obama at Fort Bliss Army Base in Texas said basically the same thing.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: If you've been a medic in theatre, you shouldn't have to start at nursing 101 if you decide want to go into the medical profession here in the United States.

LAWRENCE: So that's one issue they agree on: making it easier for vets to get credentials.

There are other job initiatives. Michelle Obama leads an effort to push companies to hire vets. Governor Romney says he'll keep a larger military, retaining more people in the service and not out in the tough job market.

Next issue: health care benefits and the performance of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Here's another question from a vet at the Orange Park VFW.

ROBERT LELACHUER: My name is Robert LeLachuer. I'm a senior master sergeant retired, United States Air Force. And my question is what can be done to alleviate the backlog of cases that are awaiting decision on benefits?

MIKE BREEN: The backlog is already being reduced and you're going to continue to see improvements.

LAWRENCE: That's Mike Breen, an Obama advisor. He's is a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. Here's his answer to the master sergeant's question:

BREEN: We saw the largest increase in VA funding in 30 years. That's why we're asking for more increases. That's why we're asking to automate a paper-and-pencil system and move that to computers, so that he can get the benefits he's earned. Because he deserves to have those benefits and he deserves to have them quickly.

LAWRENCE: The problem is once a vet puts in a claim for a medical benefit, it can take months or years to get it taken care of. The VA is trying to get the average wait time down to only four months, but it's not even meeting that goal. Romney also supports moving to a paperless system. Anthony Principi, a former secretary of the VA, advises the Romney campaign.

ANTHONY PRINCIPI: We need to put things on the computer. We need to employ new technologies developed in the private sector. Work hand in glove with the private sector to bring those solutions to the government. So rather than deciding three claims a day or four claims a day, we can double that number with the right technology.

LAWRENCE: As you can hear, the campaigns aren't that far apart on what to do for veterans. They both agree on the need and even some of the solutions. And there's one more similarity. Advocates say neither candidate has offered enough in the way of specifics.

Quil Lawrence, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.