Ode to the Named and Unnamed Soldier

By Morgan Schneebeli

(Written in honor of Kansas Honor Flight #101)

Thank you for your service: 
It doesn’t quite suffice. Thank you for your sacrifice isn’t quite right either. 
Because the Uninformed believe the only sacrifice the Uniformed can make is their life, which is, of course, the greatest sacrifice. 
And yet, the sacrifices do not begin and end there. 
There are too many to list, even by you to yourself.
They are finite like the stars you watched over and infinite like the impacts you’ve made on those around you.
There is the physical and mental toll, the visible battle wounds for some and invisible embattled scars for others.
But there is also the temporary hold on your freedom, the pro tem pause on your personal plans, all selflessly set aside to aide in a greater campaign. 

The willingness to do what others would not.
The willingness to go where others would not.
The willingness to endure what others disregarded, discounted, or demeaned.
During the blackest nights of your deployment, you were flooded with flashbacks of home, with memories of your childhood in Hartford or Wichita, Houston or Omaha.
And when you returned, the flashbacks did, too, except now they were set in Korea or Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.
Living entire lifetimes in the stopgap before detonation.
Losing entire lifetimes in the stopgap before detonation.

And so, thank you.
Thank you for defending our freedoms and heeding the call.
Thank you for your moments of doubt, your years of dedication, and decades of conviction.
Thank you for approaching every duty, every aspect of your life and service like you were signing your name to it.
Thank you for the stories you’ve shared, the ones difficult to hear but more difficult to tell.
Thank you for the lessons you learned and passed on; thank you for keeping those lessons of war close but your humanity closer.
Thank you for always doing the right thing even when it was hard.
Thank you for personifying the reluctant hero, at home and abroad.

So yes, thank you for your service, in perpetuum.
But above all, thank you for your sacrifices, each and every one.

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Morgan Schneebeli teaches and writes in the Kansas City area. She is the recipient of the 2022 Wild Outstanding Essay Award from Emporia State University. Recently, she was selected as the winner of Johnson County Library’s writing contest, and her poetry was featured in its 2024 Art and Poetry Walk. She is currently pursuing a Creative Writing MFA at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.