Here’s your chance to showcase your creativity and honor America’s Veterans through art. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Veterans Day National Committee are now accepting submissions for the 2026 Veterans Day Poster Contest.
Deadline: All entries must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. (EDT) on April 1, 2026.
This contest is open to everyone—professional and amateur artists alike. Your design should reflect this year’s theme:
“Veterans Helping Veterans and Their Families.”
Why Participate?
The winning poster will be distributed to VA facilities, military installations and communities nationwide. It will also serve as the cover of the official program for the Veterans Day National Observance at Arlington National Cemetery on Nov. 11, 2026.
Looking back: Last year’s winner
In 2025, the Veterans Day National Committee received more than 180 entries from artists across the country. The winning design, “Unified by Service,” was created by Jeremy D. Carpenter, an Army Veteran from Lowell, Ark. His artwork visually united all uniformed services under one flag and one purpose, paying tribute to Veterans of every generation.
Carpenter shared that art is his way to reflect on experiences and express meaning: “It pays tribute to all Veterans regardless of when or where they served, and it emphasizes that service to the nation is not confined to one uniform, one battlefield or one generation,” he said.
Submission Guidelines
Before you start creating, please review the new design submission guidelines for 2026 to ensure your artwork meets technical requirements. Successful designs are typically simple, with minimal imagery and text.
To view past winning posters, visit the Veterans Day Poster Gallery.
How to Submit
Send electronic versions of your design as jpg/jpeg images or PDF files to vetsday@va.gov.
Questions? Contact the Veterans Day Coordinator at vetsday@va.gov.
Thank you to all who have shared their creativity to honor Veterans. We look forward to seeing your submissions for the 2026 Veterans Day Poster Contest!
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It is generally false that a 100% V.A. disability rating means you lose your military retirement check. Veterans with a 100% disability rating and at least 20 years of service typically qualify for Concurrent Retirement and Disability Pay (CRDP), allowing them to receive both full VA compensation and full military retirement pay. Some key details on 100% VA disability and retirement are:
1. Concurrent Receipt (CRDP): If you are a 20-year retiree (or a medically retired veteran) with a 100% VA rating, you are eligible for CRDP, which restores the “offset” that previously reduced retirement pay.
2. Automatic Enrollment: For most 100% disabled retirees, this combined pay is automatic and does not require a special application.
The “Offset” Rule: Previously,, for every dollar received from the VA, retirement pay was reduced by a dollar. CRDP eliminated this for those with 50% or higher ratings.
3. Combat-Related Special Compensation (CRSC): If a disability is combat-related, a veteran may qualify for CRSC, which can also pay both, often tailored to those with less than 20 years of service.
4. Exception (Chapter 61): Veterans with less than 20 years of service who were medically retired (Chapter 61) may have different rules, sometimes still facing an offset.
So, in summary, 100% VA-disabled retirees with 20+ years of service receive both, with the VA pay being tax-free and the retirement pay being taxable.
hi, I am an artist and I make very high-end wooden signs and what I would like to offer to do is commission whatever poster wins I would like to a life-size wooden sign that can be put on display. I use a scroll saw everything is handcrafted. I can show you a pictures of my portfolio, but it’s scrolled so it’s like puzzled pieces that are put together to make the full picture. They’re absolutely stunning beautiful so whoever wins the contest, I would like to be able to do this the poster that wins in an into a wooden sign. my website is not up quite yet. It is under construction, but the name of it is Willow Oak designs. I do have started a social media presence and I’m old and I’m not into technology so I’m just now getting this stuff started, but I have a whole story of how I got started and be happy to share if you require anything like that I take care of my uncle who is a disabled Vietnam, Vietnam Vet and he was my mom‘s baby brother and never had kids never married so now I’m his caregiver. I don’t get paid because I was denied that but that’s beside the point, but it has afforded me the privilege to do my Art full-time and I’m quite good at. have a blessed day I hope to hear back
I’m not going to post my sad story here, but I do want to say this. I’ve had a pretty rough year (health, financial, a whole bunch of deaths, homelessness…etc.). After years of simply discounting the VA for help, in my moment of greatest need, the VA stood up and saved my life. Not just figuratively but literally as well. My VASH team went above and beyond and proved themselves every bit the heroes they claim we veterans are. To those veterans posting here that are frustrated and or have lost faith in the VA. Do yourselves a favor and give it another chance. Remind yourself over and over that the person on the other side of the glass tapping your info on the computer is part of YOUR team and have to work all that god awful bureaucracy for you on your behalf…it doesn’t move any easier or faster for them either. Given the chance most will bend over backwards to accommodate you as much as the system will let them… I almost gave up, jumping through govt. form hoops, always another delay, “sorry the rules don’t let us use common sense…” forms, forms, forms…..but with just the tiniest support and encouragement from my VA team they given me a fighting chance at a life worth living.
Looking forward to participating in this.
Vietnam 1967, Siagon
Myself and 3 other Army musicians were flown to Saigon to be on AFVN TV, but can’t download the orders and AFVN TV picture of us.
Just about any real poster would be a veteran out here begging
for help, and VA execs walking by ignoring his cup. VA would
never run that up because it has the money, the power, and
ego to play while ignoring hardship. Just like its leadership does
with my every post here on News.va.gov. Proud wealthy people
pretending they care, and burning out at the first harsh comment.
Veterans like myself have to figure out our own health issues one
at a time. Beg doctors to test. Hope some new med helps some. Then
find out its temporary. Start over.
Because VA knows we are finally facing that magic moment. When
genomic testing shows time of changes, and body fat analysis shows
what we carry hidden in our bodies. Toxic exposures are real and
VA still refuses to do invasive procedures to find out. Ive battled now
for 8 months trying to get a hospital to take a biopsy and send it off
for analysis. Nobody wants the responsibility of getting the analysis
wrong. POPs, PFAs, and other permanent toxins hiding in our bodies
that will show in a autopsy. Only, Im trying to get my autopsy while
Im a live and fight statements from VA how its not real or secondary.
Your happy vets post in here, and vanish. Lucky them that life is better
for some. Then there are people like me who VA insults, demeans, and
drives off to avoid accountability. Because its just cheaper to wait us out
since we do not have due process. That veterans waive there rights and
become 3rd world beggars in the wealthiest eyes. Expendable.
Make no mistake, the very things Im pushing will be a national level
program soon just because of the water supply. Cant just dump in the
water and expect it not to accumulate. Thats been around since “Silent
spring” changed Congress in 1963. Which has become a issue again?
The birth of EPA and environmentalism is a issue again?
Im not writing here because its such a great soap box. Quite the opposite.
It shows the indifference of VA leadership of out spoken veterans it
chooses to black ball. To punish whistle blowers, and reward themselves
while doing it. Like all is well, no one heard you. Another bonus for that.
Decades of indifference. Total shut out. Celebrating your ability to turn
people away – getting bonuses, and frighten VA employees not to speak up.
All the earmarks of Caligula, and similar personalities.
My pain isnt real, because you dont feel it. That was true of victims at
Auschwitz that the public didnt see. You get the joy of inflicting pain,
and none of the responsibility of doing it. Just sit here, watch, and do
just what you have been doing. Right in front of the whole country.
Pretend the one sided nature of News.va.gov is perfect for conveying
how well you think you are doing. While your victims here beating silently
at the walls of VA.
Because some citizens are more equal than others.
I’ve been fighting the VA with lawyers for the past 5 years after filing for disability over 9 years ago for injuries service connected starting in 79 and after 5 years of legal assistance and almost 70 years of age, I finally get a decision in my behalf but only to find out that there’s some sort of offset. Apparently if your disability is more than retirement which I am having served over 20 years honorably, then you no longer get that retired pay. And vice versa. The fact remains that we sacrificed and gave our all. We stayed in over 20 for those retirement benifits. Retired pay, and ID card and commissary and medical benefits, and others, that was contracted to us. Now our retirement is is overridden by our disability entitlements. We are the disabled veterans and when diagnosed as such those disabled benifits take away our 20 years of committed service retirement pay? We have earned both phisycally and honorably. I volunteered for service to our country and fully understand what it means to earn the title honorably discharged as a retiree and receive the entitled retirement pay. I also fully understand what it means to be disabled for service to our country and our entitlements as disable veterans. Why take what we so rightly deserved and have earned ? Where’s the honor in taking away from us what we have so honorably earned. Why are we not back paid from date of injury instead of date of filing or date of decision. We were injured on certain dates. That’s the day compensation should be rendered from. Just another way for the government, our government, the very government we served to demoralize those who have served proudly by not giving what we’ve earned. Taking their time in years waiting us out until we pay the ultimate price then they don’t have to pay anything. Staring 70 years of age in its face, I finally get service connected, finally get awarded disability, only to learn that I only get one or the other retirement or disability determined on which is higher than the other when we all served and and deserved both entitlements? Our honorable discharges show, our DD-214’s show, our disability ratings show and we show phisycaly that we have earned it yet our government backs the VA when they make up these kind of “off sets”, and try to wait us out until we die so they can save money, our money, to line the pockets of the politicians and theirs? Where does the money go when it’s taken away from us?
I’m still in the fight. Some may say, stop your bitching, you volunteered, stop your belly aching that’s the way it goes, suck it up Marine, you signed the dotted line…..absolutely and I did it with the promise from our government that that would receive a retirement pension after serving 20+ years for our government and that I would receive compensation for any and all service connected disabilities. Not one or the other. I didn’t earn one or the other. I earned both. I’m sure there will be fallout and repercussions from my posting this but I’m not the only one this effects.
Fantastic post Mr.Love.With each passing day,accountability is less and less.