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“Tin Soldiers”

by A.M. Arndt 

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We stand shoulder to shoulder,
like two silver soldiers:
attentive, at ease.
We salute a life less ordinary,
ready as two twin tins can be
for any unexpected thing to spring.
From metal born,
from same mold torn,
our service shines in details worn.
In the trenches and adventures,
we are bonded as life’s soldiers.
In the box, out of the box,
we are pop-off pop-tops,
even when life wears our colors off.

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A.M. Arndt is an Oregon educator and writer that has been recognized by the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Contest and been published in Into the Void, Capsule Stories, Poetry|Palisatrium, Discover Beaverton, and Antithesis Journal. The author’s collections, The Younger Years: Behind Closed Doors and My Roaring Twenties: Masks Off, can be found at Amazon.com. The author’s Facebook page can be found under A.M. Arndt, #writingofamarndt. Easy links and contact information can be found at: https://sites.google.com/view/thewritingofamarndt/home. 

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Who We Are

Military Experience and the Arts, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose primary mission is to work with veterans and their families to publish short stories, essays, poems, and artwork in our biannual publication, As You Were: The Military Review, periodic editions of Blue Nostalgia: The Journal of Post-Traumatic Growth and others. To the best of our ability, we pair each author or poet that submits work to us with a mentor to work one-on-one to polish their work or learn new skills and techniques.

Our staff is based all over the country and includes college professors, professional authors, veterans’ advocates, and clinicians. As such, most of our services are provided through email and online writing workshops.

All editing, consultations, and workshops are free of charge. Veterans and their families pay nothing for our services, and they never will.

Under our Publications tab, there are more than two dozen volumes of creative work crafted by veterans and their family members as well as a virtual art gallery. Our blog posts feature short pieces that cover a wide range of opinion editorials, literary reviews, and profiles on veteran artists and writers.

Please consider spending some time navigating our site and reading and seeing the fine work of veterans and their families from around the globe.

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