Like every high-schooler across America, I have drafted dozens of essays throughout my educational experience. There is one that stands out as the most formative and close to my heart.
In 2025, when I was a sophomore, I came across the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Voice of Democracy essay contest. That year’s theme was “Is America Today Our Forefathers’ Vision?” I was intrigued by the prompt, which offered a unique opportunity both to celebrate my love for America and explain my fear that younger generations were losing once-prevalent patriotic values. I wrote my essay and submitted it through my local VFW Post in Marblehead. Eventually, I was excited to learn that I had been selected as the VFW District 10 winner, and I would be representing my district at the state-wide competition.
Winning was of course amazing, but it is what came afterward that made the experience extraordinary. I had the opportunity to meet unbelievably kind and welcoming veterans at the Marblehead VFW Post, and was even invited to deliver my essay as a speech at Marblehead’s annual Memorial Day ceremony. Standing in front of veterans in my community and having an opportunity to personally thank them is something I will never forget. It remains one of the most defining experiences of my life.
I write this article with the hope that more students will take an interest in the contest, and have the opportunity to experience something similar.
The Voice of Democracy is an annual VFW-sponsored audio-essay program open to students in grades nine through 12 in the United States and its territories. Each year, students are given a new theme and asked to write an essay responding to it. Students also record themselves reading their essays aloud.
This year’s theme is “What a Veteran Taught Me About America.” Entries are due by October 31, 2026, and must be submitted to a local participating VFW Post.
The contest also offers scholarships, including a $35,000 national first-place prize, and certificates to participating students, with opportunities for recognition as essays advance through the competition. Beyond that, it gives students an opportunity to meet and express gratitude for some of the greatest men and women alive today, and those who have passed away. This year’s theme in particular offers students the chance to honor a specific veteran’s story, as the contest guidelines include the requirement to interview a veteran.
For younger students, the VFW also offers the Patriot’s Pen essay contest, which is open to students in grades six through eight.
America often honors soldiers through ceremonies, parades, and services. This form of gratitude and remembrance is undoubtedly meaningful and necessary. But it is not as often that we get to honor each of our veterans personally. All soldiers sacrifice some part of themselves for our country. Some have given everything. They did so for the sake of something larger than themselves — to maintain the principles of freedom and democracy that more and more people today are losing sight of.
When I wrote my Voice of Democracy essay, I didn’t feel like I was changing the world. I was a high schooler, drafting words in a document like I had so many times before. But that essay brought me into a room with people who undoubtedly had changed the world, and I realized that by telling their stories, I was in some small way helping them continue to change it — to keep values of gratitude and freedom, excellence, and integrity alive.
Writing has always been the most instrumental tool for preserving the most extraordinary parts of being human. We write about events to learn from them. We write about ideas to maintain them across generations. We write about people to honor them and what they fought for.
Every single veteran has a story worth honoring. Their experiences take many different forms, with countless different locations, roles, and circumstances, but each comes with a priceless perspective from which students have much to learn.
This year’s Voice of Democracy contest gives students a reason to seek out those perspectives. That might mean talking to a family member who served. It might mean reaching out to a neighbor, a teacher, or a member of the local VFW Post. For many students, it will involve hearing a story they never would have heard otherwise.
My experience with the VFW contest taught me that honoring veterans doesn’t always require grand gestures. The most meaningful ways of saying thank you can start with genuine curiosity, a conversation, or an essay.
For teenagers in grades nine through 12, this year’s Voice of Democracy contest is an opportunity to do that. I encourage any eligible student to take that opportunity. Find your local participating VFW Post. Ask a veteran for their story, listen, and write.
America began as an idea, put into words by a few brave people and defended by countless more.
All it takes is our own words to honor those who fought to preserve that vision.