Veteran's Day Poem

On Veteran's Day, schools and government agencies would sound a one minute alarm on the eleven hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month. I have not heard this call for remembrance for over eleven years. Growing up I was a child of two active duty, enlisted parents. I had a deep respect for Veteran’s Day and what it meant. Later in my youth, I joined the Marine ROTC and gained an even deeper understanding of what it meant to be a veteran, but it was not until I served in Iraq that I truly understood the weight of being a veteran. As the years past, eleven years, the meaning of being a veteran changed. I no longer felt that a yellow ribbon and an obligatory “Thank you for your service” did anything for veterans other than acknowledge their existence and experiences. Agencies tasked with caring for us after war, have failed us. I, personally, have felt like a burden, or worse yet, a guinea pig at the VA hospitals. I, and all veterans, deserve better than that. Seeing war continuing in the countries we once stepped foot on hurts us, as if the war still follows us. For some of us, Veteran’s Day is a reminder of what we lost and how little the American people actually understand us.