Whether it be the NFL, Mike Tyson, the women's national soccer team, or members of Congress, expect to see a lot more people taking knees in the coming days, weeks and months.

The form of protest gained popularity or notoriety, depending on with whom you speak, in 2016, when then-San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem before games. It's seen a resurgence during the protests across the country for George Floyd's death.

Kaepernick has repeatedly explained he knelt to draw attention to the fact that the country, celebrated in that anthem, does not have the same rules for all races, and more specifically, police brutality toward black Americans. However, many saw the gesture as anti-patriotic, anti-military, and anti-veteran.

The U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Robert Wilkie, spoke Monday with the State of Politics blog, and while he has his hands full with reopening VA hospitals​ at the moment, we did ask him his thoughts on whether athletes or public officials should kneel during the Star Spangled Banner or the Pledge of Allegiance. The president was a vocal critic of Kaepernick a few years ago.

Wilkie said vets share a sense of duty to honor fallen comrades and soldiers who have been injured while serving, but he said individuals in the general public need to make their own decision whether taking a knee is the right call.

"We'll let conscience guide that," he said. "We'll continue every day remembering veterans in our cemeteries across the country, in our cemeteries."

Wilkie also spoke broadly about the protests happening in different cities around the United States. While he did not say whether he believed veterans should support them, he said those protests are able to happen because of current and former members of the military.

"I would venture to say almost all of them, will have said that's what we fought for, so people can express their feelings and display that sense of conscience that has moved across the entire country," he said.

Wilkie said its challenge these days to honor veterans in the same way as past years because of coronavirus and the resulting restrictions on mass gatherings. However, he said he believes families and individuals are taking on that task in smaller groups.​