On Oct. 27, 2023, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, a 125-year-old veterans service organization, opened its first-ever post inside a prison, at Sterling Correctional Facility in Colorado. The inauguration of VFW Post 12226 was the culmination of years of work by incarceration-impacted veterans, including me, who hoped the post would become the first of many across the country. 

Sensing the newsworthiness of the occasion, I wrote a piece I ultimately pitched to VFW Magazine in January 2024. Several months later, my article appeared in the magazine’s August issue. I was ecstatic. For years I had written fiction, and occasionally submitted articles to prison-run publications, but this was my first time being published in a “real” magazine. 

I couldn’t have imagined the impact the story would have. But the elation I felt being published was quickly replaced by disappointment when a YouTube user used my article to destroy the program I sought to highlight.

My piece underscored the good work being done inside SCF. I wanted to help push open the door for nearly 25,000 combat veterans incarcerated throughout the country who could also benefit from a VFW post. 

I should have considered the magazine’s reach, and that not everyone would be pleased to learn VFW had opened a post inside a prison. A month after the article appeared, in September 2024, backlash ensued. A YouTuber invoked my article in a 17-minute screed blasting VFW, the Colorado Department of Corrections, members of Post 12226 and myself. (I was not an official member.)

The video garnered 250,000 views and 17,000 likes in its first month. The YouTuber argued that members of Post 12226 and I had no business calling ourselves veterans; we’d forfeited the right to do so, and the post members didn’t deserve the honor of membership in the VFW. Were he alone in his beliefs, perhaps nothing would have come of it. But there were more than 1,700 comments on the video, many of which were from VFW members who vowed to cancel their memberships and demanded the organization reverse course. 

The outcry apparently achieved its intended effect. On Oct. 11, 2024, less than a year after it opened, the post was officially shut down. Members of the group felt betrayed and abandoned by the VFW, whose motto is: “No one does more for veterans.”

Adjutant General Dan West, a spokesperson for VFW, told a Prison Journalism Project editor that Post 12226 went defunct “when it fell below 10 members as required by our Bylaws.” West added that the YouTube video may have been a reason for members to transfer out of the post.

But on Oct. 2, 2024, about two weeks after the YouTube screed was published and nine days before the group was officially shuttered, members of Post 12226 received a letter from VFW, informing them that their memberships had been challenged. As a result, they would be booted out of VFW. 

“Upon thorough review of the membership applications to assure that eligibility was properly determined,” the letter read, “it was discovered these individuals were presented as prospective members while demonstrating characteristics deemed unworthy for membership.”

The letter was signed by West.

That my piece was used to slam the door on VFW posts inside prisons was devastating. I felt guilty. I doubted the wisdom of publishing the piece and questioned the value of journalism from the inside.

Perhaps I should have known. As part of my work for a local prison arts program, I helped teach an early version of Prison Journalism Project’s introduction to journalism class, as well as a class offered by PEN America based on their book “The Sentences That Create Us.” Currently, I’m a student in PJP’s new introduction to media writing course. Both groups and their respective teaching resources warn to varying degrees of the possibility of pushback to our work as incarceration-impacted writers. 

In its handbook, PJP cautions: “Diverse groups of readers may have differing opinions about and reactions to what you’ve written. … If you’ve done your job well, your story will generate a lot of conversation. This can be a double-edged sword and a hard lesson for rookie journalists. An especially timely and topical story usually provokes positive and negative reactions in equal measure.”

I now know the YouTuber learned of Post 12226 when he was sent a link to my article. He quoted from my piece during his rant, pulled my name from my byline, and showed mugshots of myself and members of the post while railing against us. When the post closed, his followers cheered their success online. It’s clear he used my piece to help take down the post.

Tom Stewart was the first-ever VFW post commander to be elected while inside a prison. For now, he also holds the distinction of being the only-ever commander of Post 12226. I interviewed him for my original article and again for this piece. I asked if he regretted being featured in the original article. 

“I don’t regret putting myself out there because you have to do that to change things, and to help people see what you are doing,” he said. “I would sacrifice myself if it would help the vets of this country be more successful.”

When asked why he would agree to another interview, Stewart told me, “I don’t want this to go away.” He believes that’s the underlying reason the post got shut down. “Things got hard and the VFW just wanted it to go away. So I hope that the more pieces we can do on all this, it will force a positive change for everyone.” 

And just like that, I was reminded why I had come to journalism in the first place. 
The words of incarcerated writers often fall on deaf ears; we are forever imperfect messengers. Whether marred by the nature of our crimes or simply by the fact of our incarceration, our work means little to many. But we must try to reach those critics with our writing, demanding our voices be heard, no matter the consequences. For that piece, the result wasn’t what I’d intended. Far from it. But the next time, with the next piece, maybe I’ll change a mind or two.

All kinds of incarceration-impacted writers — journalists, poets, novelists — have stories to tell, opinions that matter and unique perspectives worth sharing. Our words give us voice. It is for us to determine what we have to say.