Small town life informs Little Compton teen’s acclaimed essay on patriotism and hope
May 24, 2026 | 7:00 am ET
Description
Portsmouth High School junior Marjorie Leary represented Rhode Island as the state winner of the VFW Voice of Democracy audio-essay contest. (Photo by Katharine Leary)
Inequality. Bigotry. Poverty. They continue to challenge and divide the nation.
They test Marjorie Leary too. But the Portsmouth High School junior won’t let America’s problems overshadow its values. She sees them as motivation to fight for freedom and progress in her prize-winning Voice of Democracy audio-essay titled “In Order to Form a More Perfect Union.”
Leary, 17, of Little Compton, is the Rhode Island winner in the national competition organized by the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). She will read her essay as the keynote speaker for the state’s annual Memorial Day Ceremony Monday at the Rhode Island Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Exeter.
The essay was a mandatory assignment in her Advanced Placement (AP) Language Arts class last October. Its prompt: How are you showing patriotism and support for your country?
So Leary decided to zoom in on her experience living in a small town and her curiosity about a Vietnam veteran known as “Turtle” who lives a couple miles away from her. When she was growing up, her mother would encourage her to wave at him if they saw him sitting outside smoking a cigar when they drove by.
“I thought I’d just go into my community, because my community is a part of America, and that’s something that I really care about,” Leary said in an interview. “I’ve lived there my whole life. I know so many people there, and so many people know me. It’s quiet, it’s safe, and it’s always giving back, to me especially. I really love Little Compton. It’s so perfect, and everyone’s so kind to me, and everyone’s so supportive, and…I don’t know, that’s something to be patriotic about, for sure.”
Her teacher, Kaylin Johnson, said Leary’s essay stood out among the nearly 50 essays produced by Portsmouth High School students, which were split between VFW Post 237 in Bristol and VFW Post 5390 in Common Fence Point for initial judging.
“It was one of the best I’ve read in a very long time,” Johnson said. “Marjorie is a thinker, and she is a beautiful writer.”
Leary admits to feelings of disillusionment amid the political tensions and economic fallout gripping the United States and asks, “How do I show support for a country that has let me and so many others down?”
But then she pivots to hope, finding it in the juxtaposition of an American flag and a pride flag on display where she pumps gasoline and in the frank discussions she has with the people she loves, including those who don’t always agree with her. And she finds it in the power of a gesture as simple as a wave to connect to another human being.
‘Hope: The key word’
When she passes by Turtle, who relies on the care of his health aides, she thinks of his service and sacrifice to the country, she writes. She feels compelled to do what she can “to create a country that he recognizes again.”
“It just choked me up,” Wally Coelho, an Army veteran of Vietnam who is the president of the Bristol Veterans Council and a member of VFW Post 237 in Bristol, said of Leary’s eloquent writing. “She’s hopeful. I think it was the word. She used the word hope. To me, that’s the key word.”
In April, Leary attended the national awards ceremony in Philadelphia, where she joined winners from other states for four days of mock congressional debates, free enterprise challenges and educational activities, and visiting Valley Forge National Historical Park. Her roommate was the Maine winner, Olivia Drewniak of Bath, Maine, who went on to win the national award with a top prize of a $35,000 scholarship.
Leary, the daughter of Katharine and John Leary, received a $3,000 scholarship from the national VFW and additional awards for winning the district and state level competition.
To Leary, showing patriotism goes deeper than saying the Pledge of Allegiance or flying a U.S. flag.
“Being a patriot is about defending the fundamental parts of one’s country and home that are central to our identity and safety,” she told Rhode Island Current. “Where our country fails us is the place we should show patriotism the strongest, because it is in those vulnerable areas that the people’s will and resolve is needed to heal and improve as a whole. To put it more simply, patriotism is showing up for each other when our country can’t, and never giving up on what we know our country can be.”
Monday’s ceremony to honor the men and women who have died while in military service at the Exeter veterans cemetery begins at 1 p.m.
Gov. Dan McKee, Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos, Secretary of State Gregg Amore and General Treasurer James Diossa and U.S. Sens. Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse and U.S. Reps Seth Magaziner and Gabe Amo are scheduled to attend.
You can hear Leary read her essay here.
In Order to Form a More Perfect Union
By Marjorie Leary
Everybody calls him Turtle.
I do not know the origin nor the significance, but everybody calls him Turtle and so to me, any other title is thoroughly inconsiderable.
I remember as a child waving to him every time I passed his house, where he sat on a plastic lawn chair smoking a cigar. Wave to Turtle! my mother would say, and I’d grin and frantically shake both my arms as we drove by. And oh, what a glorious day it was when Turtle would wave back!
He is senescent and rough and never sits straight in his plastic throne; whether these are reflections of his time in Vietnam, I know not. As is the case of most veterans in my town, his experience and undefinably great sacrifice are shrouded behind silent strength. I often wonder what he thinks of the country he lives in now, in so many ways different from the one he fought for then. I wonder if he even recognizes it anymore.
I don’t.
I don’t, because the lessons I was taught about this country’s origin, its quest for freedom, its bloodied and remarkable victory, its ripe opportunities and steadfast democracy, seem to have been swept away in these passing years – kissing me boyishly on the cheek before racing away into the milky stillness of my memories. Whither America? How do I summon the same pride I was raised with, pride that felt immutable, and embrace what my country has become? How do I show support for a country that is no longer defined by its democracy, but instead its division?
How do I show support for a country that terrorizes people who look like my boyfriend, because somehow the color of his skin spells gang membership, illegal citizenship, drug smuggling?
How do I show support for a country that has let me and so many others down? How do I show patriotism and support when all I see is this country’s lack of it for many of the millions who live here?
These fears and uncertainties wrestle with me, and I have courted them and their ugliness many a night, burning the midnight oil until something else was illuminated.
Something a bit like hope.
Hope, fragile and cloying, compelling me to redefine what patriotism means to me. If my country has turned its back on me, then as a patriot I must place a steady hand on its shoulder until it faces me again. I have found that shoulder within my town. My home. I fill my car with gasoline from George’s, where an American flag and a pride flag are displayed high above the tiny shop.
I discuss intimate beliefs, political stances, morality and religion, with those I love. Not simply those who agree with me, for there is no core value more fundamental to this country than diversity, in thought and much more. When my friends and I gather to gossip and muse upon our differences, I feel the bruised and tender scar of division begin to heal.
It is only human to desire to be heard, be noticed, be respected. Recognizing these core sensibilities within the community I am a part of is where patriotism starts. So, whenever I pass Turtle in his plastic chair, I think of him and his service and I wave. I want to create a country that he recognizes again.
This begins with me recognizing him.
Providence, RI
