He sits, forgotten, on the back porch.

All around him, stacked to his height or taller, milk crates house heaps of unnecessarily hoarded items: driftwood of assorted sizes and empty bottles, mostly, but also canned spinach older than some school children and gallons of water. He could run a food pantry out of his living room. In a nuclear holocaust, he would outlive the roaches.

He is a veteran of the United States Navy, and he’s been floating aimlessly for a long time now.

The Veteran lives off the memories of his youth and TV tray dinners. Every flat surface in his house has been covered with odds and ends, but he’s carved out a little nook on his kitchen table, a place to eat. There’s another niche on the couch where he watches a fuzzy television and naps.

The back porch, however, is his favorite spot in the house. From his perch among the milk crates, the Veteran watches the natural activities of his overgrown backyard – his oasis. He’s always talking about the cardinals nesting in the trees (he calls them his cousins) and the feral cats that come and pay respects. In the year I’ve known him, he’s named three of these vagrant felines, letting them come and go as they please and always setting food if they seem hungry. When they move on down the road, as vagrant felines tend to do, he shrugs it off as best he can. He also continues setting food, just in case.

Like more than 67 percent of our nation’s veterans, the Veteran depends on disability checks; like a chimney, he smokes. Some of that disability money funds his addiction, the perennial menthol cigarette at his lips as much a crutch as the cane in his right hand. Occasionally, he coughs blackly, a deep, violent hacking that makes his eyes water. When he’s done, he’ll wipe his mouth and smile weakly before taking another drag. It’s killing him, and he doesn’t give a damn.

The Veteran lives a simply complicated life here in Knoxville. He goes to classes, sometimes, and he used to work at a gas station down the street from his house. A stroke a few years ago has slowed him down, and these days, he keeps his activity levels relatively low. Some estranged children here and there touch base with him – a son in Memphis has been saying he’d come visit for months now – but for the most part, the Veteran is alone.

This past week, 50 particularly noteworthy veterans visited Knoxville for the Medal of Honor Convention. Medal of Honor recipients, these veterans stand as examples of selflessness and valor, testaments to the power of courage. More than 70 schools across East Tennessee use their stories to teach students character through the Congressional Medal of Honor Society’s Character Development Program.

The Veteran doesn’t have a Medal of Honor, so he wouldn’t know about the complimentary moonshine the recipients found in their hotel rooms or the personalized quilts they received. The song “Long-Haired Country Boy,” couldn’t be more applicable to the Veteran, but he missed out on the private Charlie Daniels concert in the Tennessee Theatre.

Hundreds of people showed up Friday afternoon at the Holiday Inn, excited to get autographs from Medal of Honor recipients. Nobody went to visit the Veteran and his newest cat, Songi.

During their stay, the recipients told their war stories, the kind of battle sagas that movies like “We Were Soldiers” and “Forrest Gump” are based on. They’ve been telling the same stories, some of them, for decades.

The Veteran has his own stories: a trip he took to New York City, more than 30 years ago, when he rode the Staten Island Ferry for a couple bucks; the photography job he had in Guam, after he finished his service in the Navy at the end of the 1970s. On Memorial Day, he told me that sometimes, he goes to a nearby cemetery and talks to all the soldiers buried there, sharing more stories in the night with their graves.

It was a privilege for Knoxville to host the Medal of Honor recipients, an opportunity to pay respect while simultaneously meeting “America’s heroes.” Our scruffy little city on the river showed them a taste of Tennessee, and they showed us a taste of what makes – or at least, has made – America great.

But as we say goodbye to the most decorated of our veterans, the least decorated remain. The Veteran remains, forgotten on his back porch. Many more like him remain, in forgotten houses and shadowed streets and homeless shelters across the country.

As we say goodbye to some, maybe it’s time we each acknowledge the others.

R.J. Vogt is a senior in College Scholars. He can be reached at [email protected].