We look for sleep but it doesn’t come, at least not pleasantly. The neurons firing in our brains only produce the fears, the fears we most desperately want to forget.

We push the memories back, the memories which are burned into our brains like the sting of hot metal, the memories of the fallen brothers, the memories of our fallen hopes.

We hide from our families, afraid they won’t accept the new us, they see a stranger in their once son's body.

We look into the mirror and see the hardened version of what our jobs mold us into, and then glaze over with the fear of war.

We know only of what we are accustomed to, the monster of normality is strange and foreign to us.

We avoid what what sets off the trigger, the blades of the fan mistaken for the blades of a chopper, flying into the perilous unkown with no knowledge of a return date.

We plaster smiles onto our faces to hide our anger, our uncontrollable and burning rage which seems to latch its way onto us like a leech, sucking the dreams of our future.

We are angry at the way we have changed into someone different from the bright eyed kid who seems so far gone.

We are angry at how an America the brave cares nothing for those who are deemed its Protectors.

We survived but we are trapped with fear,

We are the few, the brave,

We are your veterans.