Every military veteran is willing to shed blood in order to serve the United States, but that blood isn’t only shed on the battlefield. Blood donations from military veterans are playing an integral role in the fight against cancer.

Last week, President Obama announced during his State of the Union address a cancer research effort dubbed “the Moonshot.” Like the nation’s determination to put an American on the moon, Obama asked that Americans put just as much energy into the drive to cure cancer.

A significant part of the Moonshot is the Million Veterans Program (aptly abbreviated as MVP), an effort to collect anonymous blood donations and DNA from one million veteran volunteers and use it to research chronic illnesses. In tandem, the Moonshot and MVP will have amass a trove of genetic material to test possible vaccines and medications.

“This is fascinating what they’re doing here,” VA Secretary Bob McDonald said. “The whole role of genomics will be huge, and that’s one of the reasons we wanted you to see this, because I think the work of the Million Veteran Project underscores the importance of genomics in the Moonshot in eradicating cancer.”

MVP has actually been collecting samples for six years, and some of its data dates back 20 years. It has so far collected 445,000 vials of blood from 225,000 veterans, and it will continue its mission to store one million samples for as long as there are veterans willing to donate their blood to the cause.

The organization hopes to collect 25,000 samples a year from one million military veterans by 2020.