A "useless" veteran of war speaks

I was going through some older papers today, and found a scrap on which I'd written the following words. They're unattributed; I don't know the source. They look to have been written down about 18 years ago. If anyone knows their source, please let me know. I do sense intuitively that they were spoken -- whether by a story's character or a real person (is there really any difference in the end?) -- by an injured veteran of war ... They are so potent:

"It is so easy to be forgotten," he said. "While we who are used up limp on to our demise, the ones who are still steely, strong, and useful pound past. We drown in the dust they kick up, in the wake they expel ..."