I wrote the following poem almost 20 years ago after several thousand of us were unceremoniously "dumped" from the military under the guise of the so-called voluntary "Force Reduction Program" that was enacted after Desert Shield/Desert Storm.

This is a copywrited, original poem by yours truly, but feel free to copy this, distribute this, etc.








This is dedicated to all of those who have served, are currently serving, and to those who made the ultimate sacrifice and never came home.

 

Ah, yes. I signed up for 4 years, but due to the Reduction in Forces, was out after serving 3. It's probably well enough, though, because shortly after I got out, my unit (188th Ord. Company, 2/52nd Air Defense Artillery out of Ft. Bragg, NC) was deemed obsolete, and the Hawk batteries went to National Guard only.

So I ended up in the Arizona National Guard for a year, re-trained from 27K (Hawk Fire Control Continuous Wave Radar Repairer) to 55B (Ammunition Specialist), then moved back to Tennessee. I was in the Tennessee Guard for 2 years with no promotion, because they couldn't find the money to send me off for training in yet another MOS, 91D (Operating Room Specialist.) I would have actually been able to USE the OR Specialist training, but never got it.

Lovely poem, and perfect time to post it. Thank you for your service, from one Desert Storm Veteran to another.

 

It is sad that there are so many homeless veterans out there. There should be programs available to those who have served, regardless of the time they have in... Thank you both.

 

Hey thanks so much to you all. About the homeless veterans, we have a veteran here in central Illinois who is now a preacher and is working on writing a grant to build houses/ find accommodations for these homeless heroes. The people that he's working with found near 300 homeless veterans in a 200 mile radius. I'm in high school and yesterday we had a awesome ceremony to honor the veterans in the surrounding community. The guest speaker was the man who is helping to write this grant, very touching and made me realize a whole new perspective.

 

The GI bill gives good loans to people who served in the military, but you still need to be able to find a job. It's one of the many issues we face in the contemporary world.

 

I'm very thankful for our veterans. Our freedom is what they work so hard for.

God Bless our veterans!