Vision of a Veteran: The Light Beyond the War

By Deborah Berry – The Practical & Mystic Voice™
Veterans Day – November 11, 2025

There are wars we fight that never make the headlines.
Some are waged on foreign soil. Others, deep within the human heart.

When I wrote “Vision of a Veteran” twelve years ago, I was not thinking only of soldiers in uniform. I was inspired by all of us who have walked through our own battles — visible and invisible — and carried the weight of survival in silence. Six months earlier, I had survived a fall that changed the course of my life, which took me back into survival mode. Pain and disability became my daily companions, and as I was slowly being stripped of what I had rebuilt from the car accident fifteen years prior, I was reminded of the personal wars I had already endured. That awakening led me back into a deeper journey — to what I now call the soul of resilience.

The Human Side of Heroism

To be a veteran of anything — war, trauma, illness, or loss — is to know what it means to live between life and death, between duty and despair.
It is to carry memories that no one else can quite understand, and to still rise each day with dignity, compassion, and purpose.

Veterans — both military and civilian — embody a truth we often overlook: the human heart was not designed to destroy, but to sustain. When the poem says, “Not to kill or destroy but sustain to fruition,” it speaks of our shared divine instinct to create, to protect, and to bring forth life even from the ashes.

A Mirror of the Soul

Some of the most profound experiences I have had as a coach have been with veterans. I have always stood firmly against war — against the violence between nations and the devastation it leaves on the human spirit. Yet, I could never close my heart to the men and women who returned home carrying the unseen scars of service.

Working with veterans opened something sacred in me. I saw in them a reflection of my own journey through trauma — the endurance, the hidden pain, and the unyielding will to keep going. Most of my clients were men, and being a woman brought an unexpected dynamic: a quiet permission to soften, to speak truth without judgment, and to explore the tenderness often buried beneath discipline and duty.

But compassion alone is not enough. Words, as powerful as they can be, are still only words until they are lived. The true journey of healing takes the same level of grit and courage it took to survive the war itself — whether that war was fought on a battlefield or within one’s own mind. The difference lies in the focus and in the approach.

It takes something beyond tenacity and willpower to face those scars. It demands the strength to translate anger into gentleness, and to reshape self-talk into a language of compassion. It calls for the emotional agility to resist a heart that has been locked away for too long — to transform the patterns of violence into self-kindness. The emotional intelligence stripped away by following orders or living under oppression must be relearned through the patient art of self-acceptance.

And that acceptance — raw, trembling, and real — becomes the gateway to forgiveness. Not the kind handed out freely or easily, but the kind that rises from the ashes of truth. The kind that frees both the warrior and the wounded within.

“Every human being is both the wound and the medicine. When we stop seeing them as separate, we awaken to the divine architecture of our souls' inner wisdom — not the conflict of the body.”

Healing the Inner Battlefield

The wars that linger after the guns fall silent are the ones fought in the mind and nervous system — the echoes of fear, guilt, shame, and unspoken sorrow. Healing, for any veteran, begins not in forgetting the battle but in releasing the attachment to it.

It begins in forgiveness — not of what was done or undone, but of the self that had to survive by shutting down.
It begins in light — the quiet remembrance that we are more than what happened to us.

As I healed from my own physical and emotional wounds, I came to understand that peace is not a prize handed to us at the end of suffering. It is a birthright reclaimed through awareness, surrender, and compassion.

The Light of Peace

This Veterans Day, I honor every soul who has walked through fire — every warrior who still stands in the shadows of yesterday’s battles.
Your service, whether in the field or within your own heart, matters.
Your scars are sacred.
Your endurance is a prayer for peace.

And to those still searching for light — may you know that the light has never left you. It lives within the very vision that carried you through.

May we, as a collective humanity, find freedom in the light of peace — sooner rather than later.

And so, as I did twelve years ago, I return to the words that first carried this vision — a prayer for peace that still lives in every warrior’s heart.

Vision of a Veteran

Poetry By Deborah Berry – Survivors Pay It Forward – © 2013 (Age 51)

We have lived through Great War and incredible pain, The journey was graphic and totally insane, We did our duty with our hearts locked away. Our motives were pure — it’s not easy to say.

How, when or why these battles that may, For we are just human at the end of the day, God gave us vision to stay on our mission, Not to kill or destroy but to sustain to fruition,

We have lived and survived great loss, again and again... Be free of the guilt, the misery, and shame, Now it is time to let go of the blame, The battle, the war, the hurt, and the win, No words can describe the light that was dim...

We travelled the journey in the dark, just the same, For we are the warriors — the veterans remain.

Part of our intent, our heart, and our soul, Is looking for peace — our ultimate goal.

May we find freedom
In the light of peace sooner than later
So each son, daughter, mother, father,
Wife, husband, and beloved return
Home safe and sound.

"The warrior’s heart is not hardened by war — it is refined by love.
Peace is not the absence of battle, but the remembrance of who we are beyond it."

Call to Action —

Being Kind to Yourself

If this story touched your heart, let it be a moment to pause — not to analyze, but to be kind to yourself.

Ask yourself gently: “What can I do today to be kind to myself?”

It might be a breath of stillness, a walk in nature, or speaking to yourself with the same compassion you offer others. Every act of self-kindness is a bridge back to peace — a reminder that healing begins with how we hold ourselves in the quiet moments.

“True courage isn’t surviving the war — it’s daring to meet the silence that follows.
To turn toward the pain, soften the armor, and love the one within who still trembles.”

To explore more reflections and pathways of healing, visit RevealYourLight.com — where awareness becomes life, and life becomes light.