In general, this Veteran’s Day, I kept it positive. I had good conversations with veteran friends and got out and had some fun.
The day will always bring a pause to consider where I have been, what I have seen and done, and what it means to me. I think this poem, “Elusive Enemy,” is a good way to relate that experience to you.
Never the soldier
with the flag
draped over my heart,
I looked for the enemy
diligently
in every bloody cavity.
I peered into bullet holes
of eleven-year-old
Taliban fighters,
down the dissected gash
of a known Al Qaeda operative
split lengthwise by a Hellfire missile,
through the perforated heart
of a taxi driver
turned terrorist,
the fuel of anger and resentment
like a bitter argument
whose origins are lost to memory,
blow through the market bus
showering remnants of women
and children,
they hit the ground with the soft splat
of a large raindrop,
a shoe here, a headscarf there.
I search through crowded bazaars
and vast streets
of abandoned rubble.
I thought I found the enemy
through the face of a friend
his charred features distorted beyond recognition,
I thought I found the enemy
in the chest cavity
of a man/boy,
heart and lungs fenestrated
by a bullets ricochet,
remote detonator grasped tightly in hand,
all of his blood
cascading on to the floor
leaving him a ghost.
In the dust choked
minefields
of Afghanistan,
somewhere between the Tigris
and Euphrates,
I found only an illusion,
deceived,
I found only
Myself.
This poem is published with the permission of the author. It first appeared in the online literary journal Collateral, Fall 2022
Frances Wiedenhoeft studied creative writing at Madison College. Her work can be found on warwriterscampaign.org, in the 2015 Ariel Anthology, Praxis Magazine Online, the American Journal of Nursing, the Spring 2020 issue of Deadly Writers Patrol, The Adelaide Review Literary Magazine, and Veteran Voices Magazine.
She was a finalist in poetry in the Adelaide Literary Magazine Award Contest 2024 for She won the Pallas Athene Best story award for “Glory”
She completed a residency at Write On Door County in March 2021.
She is a writer, poet, mother, and grandmother. She is also a twenty-two-year Army veteran who served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Desert Storm.
She volunteers as a reader for the Gemini Review.
She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Fall 2025