The Veteran Poem by LeeAnn Azzopardi

He lives in his battle fatigues with his blood-stained tags
Thinking about how the government was wrong about
Another war we shouldn't have fought
It keeps repeating like clockwork
Hearing the bombs and cries of the parents
For their dead children
Night after night, he sees the bloody faces
Of his platoon reaching out to him
He can smell the rotten corpses and the gunpower
As he imagines the sound of bullets hitting the tanks
And the helicopters flying around his room
Trying to land
It's all the things he can't explain
To his family and friends at the VA
It never stops
Until he put his gun to his head
And pulls the trigger