"Something that we hear over and over again from veterans, unfortunately, is that they feel like they're not being heard," Aminatou Sow of the IAVA, who led the project's team, told me. "The point of the data visualization for us was to give our members a way for them to tell use their stories."

As the visualization opens, a little film plays: "Imagine this is you," the text reads. In the background, a war scene unfolds, followed by images of disabled veterans. A slide appears, asking you, "How long should you have to wait before the country you served provides the help it promised?" You the select what you think to be an appropriate amount of time, perhaps a few days. Then the screen goes black, and the words read: "Over 500,000 veterans are waiting 344 days on average for the support they need."

"A lot of people are blown away by how long that is -- the fact that service-members have to wait for over a year," says Sow.

Roughly 2.5 million Americans have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, but many civilian Americans might not know more than a handful. "There's just this huge civilian/service-member divide," says Sow. She hopes that "The Wait We Carry" can be a plank in a bridge across that divide.