The Cost of Being Their Favorite Pawn

Every election season, the same script rolls out.
The flags come out of storage. The camera crews line up at memorial walls. The speeches start with “Our brave men and women in uniform…” and end with promises that sound like patriotism but function like propaganda.

Politicians wrap themselves in the military community because we make good optics—strong, selfless, heroic. We are the safest stage for their performances of pride. But when the lights go out and the votes are counted, they step off that stage, and we’re left standing in the dark.

Because once again, we’re not partners in policy—we’re pawns in politics.

The Performance of Patriotism

There’s a reason political consultants love the military community: we look good on camera (well, not me, but many do).

They call it supporting the troops, but most days, it’s supporting the illusion.
They wear flag pins, quote the Pledge, and use our sacrifices as soundbites in campaign ads.
They talk about courage, loyalty, and service as if those are props they can borrow for thirty seconds of credibility.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: patriotism has become a performance.
It’s the red, white, and blue stagecraft of American politics—complete with music, lighting, and photo ops—while the real work of caring for veterans and their families gets buried behind bureaucracy and budget cuts.

They’ll:

• Post a photo with a veteran, but never return a veteran’s call about a benefits delay.

• Stand at a podium on Memorial Day, but stand down when asked to reform survivor benefits.

• Tweet about freedom, but vote against funding the healthcare for those who defend it.

The same lawmakers who call them heroes often treat them as expendable once they’ve outlived their political usefulness.

They love the image of the warrior, but not the responsibility that comes with the wounds.
They’ll use “military families” as a talking point, but ignore that those same families are holding the system together with duct tape, grace, and unpaid labor.

Meanwhile, behind the glossy statements, real people are fighting the quiet wars no one televises:

• Caregivers wading through endless paperwork just to get basic medical equipment.

• Spouses navigating benefits so complicated you’d think they were designed to make you give up.

• Survivors waiting years for decisions on claims that should have been automatic.

And the cruelest irony?
Each generation has to fight the same battles the last one already won.

It has taken years—sometimes decades—for veterans to get medical coverage for conditions the government knew were service-related: Agent Orange, burn pits, radiation, toxic exposure, contaminated water.
The evidence was there. The pain was there. The need was there.
But action was delayed until it became politically convenient—or until the majority of those affected were no longer alive to benefit.

That’s not patriotism.
That’s performance art with a body count.

True patriotism doesn’t need applause, hashtags, or re-election campaigns.
It’s measured in accountability, compassion, and follow-through.
It’s not a speech—it’s a standard.

Until this country starts valuing service as more than spectacle, until it funds care with the same urgency it funds ceremonies, and until it stops treating us as props in a political play, we’ll keep seeing the same act on repeat.

Different faces, same lines, same broken promises.

The Bipartisan Blame Game

And let’s be clear—this isn’t a one-party problem.
Both sides do it.

For every lawmaker who genuinely wants to help, there’s another who says, “Oh, I see that bill is supported by the other party. I can’t co-sponsor it.”
Not because the policy is wrong, but because the politics are inconvenient.
It’s not about helping veterans—it’s about keeping score.

Meaningful legislation for the military and veteran community too often dies in committee or gets quietly gutted on the floor—not because it’s unworkable, but because it’s politically unprofitable.

Then come the tactics—the games behind the curtain:

• Erroneous or inflated Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scores used as excuses to block progress. We’ve seen bills marked as “too expensive” because they might cost billions in a hypothetical decade, while ignoring the very real human cost of inaction that compounds every single day.

• “Poison pill” amendments slipped in to force one side to vote against their own values, ensuring the failure of a bill that would have helped thousands.

• Renaming and repackaging legislation so one party can take credit while the other is forced to oppose the “new” version of the same idea.

• Performative hearings where leaders make sympathetic speeches, promise to “look into it,” and then conveniently run out the clock when the cameras turn off.

• Budget shell games—funding authorizations without appropriations, symbolic votes without follow-through—so they can claim victory without ever delivering change.

All the while, veterans wait.
Families wait.
Survivors wait.

For care, for clarity, for justice that should not depend on which side of the aisle happens to hold the gavel this year.

Our community has become the favorite stage for bipartisan theater—where “support the troops” is the opening act, blame the opposition is the encore, and nothing meaningful gets done between the applause breaks.

The Broken Contract

When a service member raises their right hand, they enter into a sacred contract.
Not just between the military and those who serve—but between this nation and every person who stands behind them.

That contract extends to the spouses who keep households running through deployments, to the children who learn resilience before they learn to drive, and to the surviving families who keep the memory of service alive long after the headlines fade.

It’s a bond of trust, not a transaction—a promise that the nation will stand by those who stood for it.

And when politicians use us as props, then turn their backs when it’s time to fund care, reform systems, or hold agencies accountable—they’re not just breaking policy. They’re breaking faith.

The Real Call to Action

We don’t want platitudes.
We want promises kept.

We don’t want pity.
We want policy that works.

Don’t tell us we’re heroes while cutting the programs that keep our families alive.
Don’t praise our strength while ignoring our struggle.
Don’t call us “the backbone of the nation” and then refuse to carry the weight of responsibility that comes with that claim.

The military community—veterans, families, caregivers, and surviving spouses—isn’t your campaign backdrop.
We’re the ones who live the cost of your decisions.

So the next time someone in power says they “support the troops,” ask them to prove it.
With votes, not words.
With funding, not photo ops.
With action, not applause.