Honoring Our Veterans - Challenge

There are two challenges: a monthly challenge and an annual challenge. Completing the challenges makes you eligible for prizes. For information on how to complete the challenges, see the Answering the Chalenges tab.

The Monthly Challenge
For each month, the challenge is to submit a story (up to 1,000 words), a poem (up to 40 lines), or any relevant piece of writing (up to 1000 words) about veterans or military life.

Every time you submit a qualifying piece of writing for a monthly challenge, you will receive 1,000 GPS. Each month, we will randomly select one successful challenger to receive an exclusive merit badge.

The Annual Challenge
For each year, the challenge is to enter as many monthly challenges as you can.

If you complete the Annual Challenge, you will receive an awardicon (value varies based on gold, silver, or bronze status), and an exclusive merit badge. See the Annual Prizes tab for more details.

There are a few more technical rules, but those are the basics. Your entry can be about any military service for any nation.

The first step is to write a story (up to 1000 words), a poem (up to 40 lines), or an any relevant piece of writing (up to 1000 words) about veteran or military life and save it to your portfolio on Writing.Com.

To the complete a monthly challenge, you should:

Post a message in the forum.
          The subject of the message should be Entry for the Month of < Month of challenge>
          The body of the message should include a LINK to your entry in either bitem or entry format
          The body of the message should also include the word count for stories, articles, blog posts, etc., or the line count for poems
          The body of the message should also include the branch and nationality of service that inspired the entry
Please be sure your message has at most a 13+ rating
Your entry may have any rating, but please be sure it is properly rated
You may enter each monthly challenge only once
You are encouraged to enter every month

To complete the annual challenge, complete a minimum of four monthly challenges.

Every entry receives 1,000 GPS.
At the end of each month, we will randomly select one entry to receive an exclusive merit badge.
Each entry earns credit toward the annual prizes.

Awards are based on the number of Monthly Challenges in which you have participated. Notice that you may participate in each monthly challenge only once. You may receive at most one annual award (we will award you the highest level award that you earned).

For the current year (2026), participation in Monthly Challenges will be counted for the months of DEC 25 through November 20, 2026.
                             

Starting in December of 2025 and forward
Everyone who has completed exactly TEN Monthly challenges earns:
          a 75K awardicon, and an exclusive merit badge

Everyone who has completed exactly EIGHT or NINE Monthly challenges earns:
          a 50K awardicon, and an exclusive merit badge

Everyone who has completed exactly SIX or SEVEN Monthly challenges earns:
          a 25K awardicon, and an exclusive merit badge

Everyone who has completed exactly FOUR or FIVE Monthly challenges earns:
          10K awardicon, and an exclusive merit badge
                             

You may enter every monthly challenge, but you many enter each individual monthly challenge at most once.
If you enter a monthly challenge more than once, only the first entry counts toward participation, earns 1,000 GPS, and is eligible for the drawing for a merit badge.
All entries must have a military or veteran-related theme
All entries must be consistent with the mission of the Honoring Our Veterans page.
All entries must be posted prior to midnight WDC time on the last day of the month (except November, when the deadline is the 20th of the month)
You can enter any item that hasn't already been submitted to this forum (new / old, awarded / not awarded)
All messages entering the contest must follow the guidlines below:
          The subject of the message should be ENTRY FOR MONTH OF < Month of challenge>
          The body of the message should include a LINK to your entry in either BITEM or ENTRY format.
          Your entry must be in your Writing.Com portfolio--you may not enter someone else's item.
          The body of the message should also include the word count for stories and articles or the line count for poems.
          The body of the message should also include the branch and nationality of service that inspired the entry.
          The rating of the message must be no higher than 13+.
All entries must be properly rated.
No plagiarized or AI (artificial intelligence) entries allowed.
Any member of Writing.Com may participate in our challenges.

December 2025 Entries

1. "Veteran's Hip-hop" 
2. "A Chain Broken, A Heart Mended (Short Story)" 
3.

The Flags of Arlington  (E) Every year, members of the 3rd Infantry place flags on the graves in Arlington Cemetary #2045756 by Jim

4.

STATIC

Meeting Rachel  (E) Two Americans meet at the German Christmas Market. #2351164 by StephBee

2025 Challenge Winners:
-- all winners received an exclusive Veterans Group Merit Badge

7+ Entries:
-- all winners received a 75K Awardicon awarded to their Portfolio.

Amethyst Snow Angel
Angelica Weatherby- Snowangel
🌻 pwheeler ~ happy new year
Dave
StephBee

6 Entries:
--all winners received a 50K Awardicon awarded to their Portfolio

Soldier_Mike

4 Entries:
--all winners received a 25K Awardicon awarded to their Portfolio

dogpack saving 4premium+

Hearty thanks to all those who have donated to keep this challenge going and to provide rewards for our entrants. Your support is greatly appreciated!

January 2026:

Donations from 15K to 39 K gps will receive a community merit badge. You can request a specific one, or I can surprise you.



Donations 40,000 - 79,000 gps will receive the Honoring All Who Served exclusive merit badge



Donations 80+ will receive the very rare, exclusive Recruiting Hero merit badge.



JAN 2026 FUNDRAISING:
January 2026 Donors:

GROUP

The Hive  (13+) A colony for the donors of CommuniBees. #2319168 by Jeremy

- 96,000 GP's - Big thank you to Jeremy - Recruiting Hero Given.
🌝 HuntersMoon 100,000 GP's - Recruiting Hero Given

******

Special thanks to the generous donors listed here:
"Honoring Our Veterans Donor List"