Weight of My Armor, The / Working and Writing for Change (PDF)

The essays and poems in The Weight of My Armor represent the work of twenty-three members of the Syracuse Veterans' Writing Group, which meets monthly on the Syracuse University campus. Since 2010, the group has served as an intergenerational community where veterans and military family members write about their lives in and beyond the military.

The Weight of My Armor offers creative nonfiction and poetry that spans a range of military experiences, including overseas deployments and combat, military acculturation and training, adventure and camaraderie, shock and loss, and endurance and survival. This collection also addresses aspects of the military experience that receive less public attention such as gender oppression and military sexual trauma, the long-term physical and psychological costs of warfare, the complex challenges of familial and social reintegration, and the experience of growing up in a military family.

In honest and courageous voices, these writers bear witness to events and circumstances that were largely beyond their control. They also reflect on their service, representing it with the accuracy and specificity unique to first person narratives. Taken together, these pieces encourage dialogue about the personal, social, and economic costs of our nation's wars, both past and present.