The Forgotten Soldier

In this dramatic monologue for older men from the play, “The Forgotten Solider”, Mark speaks to a young man about the costs of war.

MARK: They said I was a hero. A hero for surviving, for keeping my men alive. They shook my hand, pinned a medal on my chest, and then sent me home. I think that’s the cruelest part of it all. The sending home. Because they don’t tell you what survival costs, not really.

It’s not the scars—those are just the price of the job. It’s not the nightmares, either. You learn to live with those. They come and go like bad weather. Some nights, the rain pours, and you see faces—faces you’ll never forget. But you know what to do: get up, walk around, wait for it to pass.

But the silence… The silence is the real enemy. The quiet rooms, the empty tables… you come back expecting life to pick up where you left it. But it doesn’t. The people who used to fill those tables—they’ve moved on. They’ve had birthdays, weddings, children. And you—well, you’re still stuck in that sandstorm, that jungle, that city street where it all happened.

And you try. God, do you try. You sit in their rooms, at their tables, and you laugh at their stories. But it’s always there—the gap. The unspoken thing between you. They’ll never understand why you look out the window so much, or why your hand shakes when you hear a car backfire. They call it adjustment, reintegration. Nice words for a hard truth: you can’t come back from some places.

You want to know what I miss most? It’s not the medals, or the salutes, or even the camaraderie. It’s the purpose. Out there, every breath you took mattered. Every step, every decision—it all meant something. Here… it’s harder to find that.

But don’t think I’m telling you this to scare you, or to make you pity me. No, I tell you this because someday, you might feel the same weight. Maybe not from war—maybe from something else. Life has a way of testing us like that. And when it does, I want you to remember: surviving isn’t just about staying alive. It’s about finding a way to live with yourself after.

And if that feels too heavy some days… well, you’re not alone. You can always sit with me, right here on this bench. We don’t even have to talk. Sometimes, the silence isn’t so bad… as long as someone’s sitting beside you.

How to Support Our Work