Obituary for the Unknown Soldier
This poem is not new, but the circumstances are.
From the Associated Press 4/12/2025: “VA mental health clinicians [will] work with headphones in a call-center like configuration to provide telehealth. In one recording obtained by NPR, a manager in a teleconference meeting acknowledged that it was inevitable therapy sessions would be overheard and exhorted people not to share any confidential information.”
As a veteran who has received excellent care from VA mental health providers through the years, this pisses me off. As a volunteer, who has worked with organizations like Chicago Veterans and the Travis Manion Foundation, to draw attention to the number of veteran suicides (22 each day in 2017, down to 18 each day in 2024), VA mental health is not a place that needs staffing reductions.
I wrote this poem after volunteering with one veteran organization several years ago. It’s a commentary on the brevity, the short shrift that is given to veterans—your neighbors, co-workers, family, friends—when they return home.
To my fellow veterans who are struggling, please know that help is available. You are loved.
Obituary for the Unknown Soldier Shotgun lone son Kraft Mac & Cheese Pa’s on his knees punctured pocket Tubbs and Crockett Penthouse magazine under evergreens SAT: absentee food stamps boot camp bunkmate Braxton: killed-in-action Guns & Ammo, crisp in camo sick-bay commando gin, rum, tobacco killer dancer, liver cancer lonesome shotgun
April is National Poetry Month! I aim to post a poem each weekday in celebration of the form. Some old, some new, some published, some never-before-seen.