November 11th is a day of remembrance for veterans of the United States military. This holiday, previously known as Armistice Day, was created to honor military veterans returning from World War I. It is common for citizens across the country to wear red poppies on this day so that symbols of sacrifice are never forgotten. Here, you will get 15 Veterans Day Poems With Images.
Veterans Day Poems 2022
Take A Moment To Thank A Veteran
When you see someone in a uniform,
Someone who serves us all,
Doing military duty,
Answering their country’s call,
Take a moment to thank them
For protecting what you hold dear;
Tell them you are proud of them;
Make it very clear.
Just tap them on the shoulder,
Give a smile, and say,
“Thanks for what you’re doing
To keep us safe in the USA!”
By Joanna Fuchs
Why?
Why did you leave home and friends,
comfort and safety,
to experience pain and hardship,
so I could be protected?
I don’t know; but thank you.
Why did you put yourself in danger,
injury and death always a possibility,
so I could be free?
I don’t know; but thank you.
Thank you, veteran.
Thank you!
The Best on Earth:
A Veteran’s Day Tribute
If someone has done military service,
They earn the title “veteran,” and more;
They earn our deep respect and admiration;
That they are special no one can ignore.
They sacrificed the comforts we enjoy;
The list is long of all the things they gave.
Our veterans are extraordinary people;
They’re loyal, dedicated, true and brave.
When terror and invasion were real threats,
They showed us they could handle any storm.
We owe our freedoms and our very lives
To our veterans, who served in uniform.
Our veterans should be celebrities;
They’re exceptional; no other group compares.
We’re grateful for the many things they’ve done;
They’re always in our hearts and in our prayers.
We owe our veterans support and friendship;
Let no one ever question what they’re worth.
These men and women served us and our country,
Our veterans–the very best on earth.
By Joanna Fuchs
On Veterans’ Day
While we were here at home,
They traveled land and sea,
To make sure we stayed safe,
To protect and keep us free.
Words are not enough
To give them what they’re due.
On Veterans’ Day, please thank them
For their service, to me and you.
By Joanna Fuchs
Secret Respect
There’s not a Fascist in the USA
Who doesn’t, in their true heart, say
I’m thankful for those who serve and fight,
So I can peacefully sleep at night.
No partisan politics can keep away
The gratitude I feel, but cannot say
To veterans who kept America secured,
With all the hardships they endured.
Away from family, friends and more,
They knew what they were working for:
Keeping freedom really free
For the right, the middle, and even me.
Veterans, you have my deep respect,
Even if it isn’t politically correct.
By Joanna Fuchs
from “1915: The Trenches”
Conrad Aiken – 1899-1973
All night long we lie
Stupidly watching the smoke puff over the sky,
Stupidly watching the interminable stars
Come out again, peaceful and cold and high,
Swim into the smoke again, or melt in a flare of red…
All night long, all night long,
Hearing the terrible battle of guns,
We smoke our pipes, we think we shall soon be dead,
We sleep for a second, and wake again,
We dream we are filling pans and baking bread,
Or hoeing the witch-grass out of the wheat,
We dream we are turning lathes,
Or open our shops, in the early morning,
And look for a moment along the quiet street…
And we do not laugh, though it is strange
In a harrowing second of time
To traverse so many worlds, so many ages,
And come to this chaos again,
This vast symphonic dance of death,
This incoherent dust.
Field Manœuvres
Richard Aldington – 1892-1962
The long autumn grass beneath my body
Soaks my clothes in dew;
Where my knees press into the ground
I can feel the damp earth.
In my nostrils is a smell of crushed grass,
Wet pine-cones and bark.
Through the bronze pine trunks
Glitters a silver segment of road.
Interminable squadrons of silver and grey horses
Pace in long ranks the blank fields of heaven.
There is no sound;
The wind hisses gently through the pine-needles;
The flutter of a finch’s wings about my head
Is violent as distant thunder,
And the shrill flight of a gnat
Sounds loud and clear.
I am “to fire at the enemy column
After it has passed”—
But my rifle (loaded with “blank”)
Lies untouched before me,
My spirit follows the gliding clouds
And my lips murmur of the mother of beauty
Standing breast-high in golden broom
Among the English pine-woods!
A Military Hospital
Vera Brittain – 1893-1970
A mass of human wreckage, drifting in
Borne on a blood-red tide,
Some never more to brave the stormy sea
Laid reverently aside,
And some with love restored to sail again
For regions far and wide.
1st London General Hospital, 1916.
Not to Keep
Robert Frost – 1874-1963
They sent him back to her. The letter came
Saying… and she could have him. And before
She could be sure there was no hidden ill
Under the formal writing, he was in her sight—
Living.— They gave him back to her alive—
How else? They are not known to send the dead—
And not disfigured visibly. His face?—
His hands? She had to look—to ask,
“What was it, dear?” And she had given all
And still she had all—they had—they the lucky!
Wasn’t she glad now? Everything seemed won,
And all the rest for them permissible ease.
She had to ask, “What was it, dear?”
“Enough,
Yet not enough. A bullet through and through,
High in the breast. Nothing but what good care
And medicine and rest—and you a week,
Can cure me of to go again.” The same
Grim giving to do over for them both.
She dared no more than ask him with her eyes
How was it with him for a second trial.
And with his eyes he asked her not to ask.
They had given him back to her, but not to keep.
To a Soldier in Hospital
Winifred M. Letts – 1882-1972
Courage came to you with your boyhood’s grace
Of ardent life and limb.
Each day new dangers steeled you to the test,
To ride, to climb, to swim.
Your hot blood taught you carelessness of death
With every breath.
So when you went to play another game
You could not but be brave:
An Empire’s team, a rougher football field,
The end—perhaps your grave.
What matter? On the winning of a goal
You staked your soul.
Yes, you wore courage as you wore your youth
With carelessness and joy.
But in what Spartan school of discipline
Did you get patience, boy?
How did you learn to bear this long-drawn pain
And not complain?
Restless with throbbing hopes, with thwarted aims,
Impulsive as a colt,
How do you lie here month by weary month
Helpless, and not revolt?
What joy can these monotonous days afford
Here in a ward?
Yet you are merry as the birds in spring,
Or feign the gaiety,
Lest those who dress and tend your wound each day
Should guess the agony.
Lest they should suffer—this the only fear
You let draw near.
Greybeard philosophy has sought in books
And argument this truth,
That man is greater than his pain, but you
Have learnt it in your youth.
You know the wisdom taught by Calvary
At twenty-three.
Death would have found you brave, but braver still
You face each lagging day,
A merry Stoic, patient, chivalrous,
Divinely kind and gay.
You bear your knowledge lightly, graduate
Of unkind Fate.
Careless philosopher, the first to laugh,
The latest to complain.
Unmindful that you teach, you taught me this
In your long fight with pain:
Since God made man so good—here stands my creed—
God’s good indeed.
Inscription
Herman Melville – 1819-1891
For Marye’s Heights, Fredericksburg
To them who crossed the flood
And climbed the hill, with eyes
Upon the heavenly flag intent,
And through the deathful tumult went
Even unto death: to them this Stone—
Erect, where they were overthrown—
Of more than victory the monument.
Dulce et Decorum Est
Wilfred Owen – 1893-1918
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Poems are a great way to remember all of the sacrifices that our veterans have made for us. While Veterans Day is usually observed on November 11 every year, you can still take some time out of your day to honor these brave men and women. And since this poetry collection has been compiled with images as well as words, it’s an even better way for children to learn about what our veterans have done for us.
