Lately, this space has been about doing what I can — small things, quiet things. Writing about food that costs less but still feeds fully. Reminding people that hard times have come before, and somehow, we made it. Trying to turn memory into a map, so maybe others can find their way through their own lean seasons.
But today, I want to turn that attention outward — toward a different kind of endurance. Toward a group of people who also know what it means to do what they can — and often, far more. The ones who gave years, limbs, sanity, and sometimes everything, in the name of something larger than themselves.
We set aside a day for them — Veterans Day — meant to honor those who served this country and, in too many cases, came home carrying its invisible weight. We say “thank you for your service,” and we mean it, most of us. But I keep wondering if that’s all we’ve learned to say.
You don’t have to look far to see the contradiction: a country that never stops telling itself that it leaves no one behind, and yet, at almost every intersection, you can see someone it did. Veterans sleeping under bridges. Holding cardboard signs. Waiting at food pantries. People who once trained to survive in the most hostile places on earth are now fighting to survive at home.
Yes, there are programs. Yes, there are benefits. But if you’ve ever stood in line at the VA or talked to someone navigating that system, you know the difference between what exists and what works.
I’m not here to offer solutions. I don’t have them. I don’t know how to fix the machinery of a government that can spend billions on war but seems to run out of compassion on the return trip. What I know are smaller things — human things. I know how to say thank you. I know how to feed someone. I know how to remember.
And maybe that’s something, even if it isn’t enough.
When I write about food, I’m really writing about survival — about how we keep going when everything feels stripped bare. And in a way, that’s what veterans know better than anyone. They know how to keep moving through the noise. How to turn discipline into a ritual. How to make meaning in the middle of chaos. They’ve done it for us, even when we didn’t deserve it.
The stories I tell, about stretching enough to feed a family — they’re small, domestic wars of endurance. Theirs were louder, bloodier, lonelier. But the lesson is the same: survival costs something, and someone always pays.
I think about the phrase “thank you for your service.”
How tidy it sounds. How quick. It fits easily into conversation, into tweets, into holiday speeches. But behind that politeness are pieces of people scattered across decades — the ones who never came back, and the ones who did, but not completely.
I don’t have parades or medals to give.
I have words — small, imperfect ones, but offered with weight.
To every man and woman who served — thank you. For your strength, your sacrifice, your impossible patience. For doing what many couldn’t or wouldn’t.
And to those still fighting their own wars at home — for housing, for healthcare, for peace of mind — I see you. I don’t have answers, but I have recognition. I have gratitude. And I have the conviction that we can do more, that we must do more, for a country that still calls itself free.
So today, I’ll do what I can — remember, write, feed whoever I can reach.
Because service shouldn’t end when the war does.
Kyle J. Hayes
kylehayesblog.com
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