This coming Monday, with "Veterans Day Sales" all over the newspapers, most Americans observe Veterans Day with flags and parades, honoring men and women who have gone to war for the United States. These days, few recollect that the original name of the holiday was Armistice Day, in honor of the November 11, 1918 end of World War I, then called the "war to end all wars."

One who has not forgotten is Maxine Hong Kingston, whose National Book Award-winning The Woman Warrior is a staple on college campuses and who garnered a Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at last year's National Book Awards. Kingston famously shifted gears in 1991 when her house burnt down in a devastating fire, and with it all trace of her book in progress. "I decided right then," she said, "that my first book needed to be a book of peace."

Not only that, but she needed for the new book to include the voice of veterans of war. "I had lost my writing," Kingston told interviewer Miel Alegre, "and I wanted a community of writers around me. I asked that these people who would write with me be veterans or families of veterans because I wanted to ask the hardest questions: How do we come home from war? Can we end war? Can we end war that goes on in our very souls? And How do we make peace? These are the questions that I was asking as I was working on that lost book. What can one small individual do in this big world to have any effect?"

The result was The Fifth Book of Peace, which ends by narrating Kingston's acclaimed veterans' writing workshop, and a collection of work by its members, Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace. Below are three short poems by veterans from her workshop, followed by a reading by Kingston and three veterans at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. These voices form a strong counterpart to the veterans in Monday's parades.

Read more at Women's Voices For Change.