“Unquenchable” |

MEA 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 bi-annual publication, As You Were: The Military Review, periodic editions of Blue Nostalgia: The Journal of Post-Traumatic Growth, and others. Each author or poet who submits work to us is afforded the chance to work one-on-one with a mentor to polish their work or learn new skills and techniques.

Our editors are based all over the country and includes college professors, professional authors, veterans’ advocates, and clinicians.

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 a 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.

“Unquenchable”

Spring 2018 | Volume 8

by Maryrose Carroll

The green-tailed black-winged dragon flies

Out of the sky 18,000
Descending parachutists
Smooth the path
Where we will walk.

On Normandy beaches
Against mines, machine guns
Troops advance the possibilities of peace
Through suffering

Worlds of peace rained down.
Hearts rise in hope as
A beachhead’s gained at Omaha.
While fathers were lost, we were born.

Babies born to a hope of peace
Never knowing these own soldier’s faces,
He not seeing theirs.
Babies born.

The green-tailed black-winged dragon flies