Elton John has a challenge for you

The above image was published in LIFE Magazine in November 1990 showing AIDS patient David Kirby taking his last breaths surrounded by his family in Ohio. The image, shot by Therese Frare, became the face of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. See the entire collection of images on Life.com.

Kirby's mother, Kay, holds a photograph of her son taken before AIDS set in.

Peta, a volunteer at Pater Noster House, cares for Kirby. After Kirby's death in April 1990, Frare began photographing Peta, another AIDS patient.

Peta relaxes in a home rented by Pater Noster House in 1991. After using Frare's image in an advertisement for AIDS awareness, United Colors of Benetton donated money to Pater Noster, which in turn paid for furnishings for Peta and other patients.

Peta swims in a lake on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1991.

Peta lays in a bed at Pater Noster House in 1992. See the full gallery at Life.com.

• Elton John: In the 1980s, newspapers wouldn't use term "gay," AIDS was ignored by many


• He says "The Normal Heart," an HBO film, portrays the days when many of his friends were dying


• Today's challenges regarding AIDS are different but equally urgent, he says


• Elton John: We can protect and treat everyone, yet the most vulnerable still struggle

Editor's note: Sir Elton John is the Founder of the Elton John AIDS Foundation, which has raised more than $300 million since 1992 for AIDS prevention and treatment. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) -- "The Normal Heart," written by my friend, the brilliant playwright Larry Kramer, and based on his story during the earliest days of the AIDS epidemic, tells a tale that many of us lived through, and many others did not survive. It's as relevant today as an HBO movie as when it premiered on the stage in New York City in 1985.

Back then, The New York Times refused to print the word "gay," and New York Mayor Ed Koch was agonizingly slow to respond to the unfolding epidemic. Fear was everywhere. Around the country, family members shunned infected relatives, doctors were afraid to touch AIDS patients, let alone treat them, and hospital wards filled up with young men covered in lesions, dying excruciating deaths. I've almost lost track of the number of funerals I went to in those years. My friends were dying all around me -- I'm lucky that I somehow survived.

ACT UP, the coalition that Larry founded to address the crisis, coined the phrase "silence equals death" as its rallying cry, and it was no exaggeration. By the end of 1983, AIDS had claimed 2,100 lives, but the government would hardly acknowledge that anything was awry. I can't help but wonder, if those in power had cared more, if they had done more, perhaps we could have ended this epidemic before it began to circle the globe. But they didn't care, they didn't act, and 36 million people have died of AIDS since.

Worldwide, another than 1.6 million people will die of AIDS this year.

In the United States, there will be roughly 50,000 new infections.

While The Normal Heart is a product of a specific time, it is not an artifact. There is still an AIDS crisis -- not only in sub-Saharan Africa, but right here in the America, in your state, in your community. And, just as in 1985, it is silence, fear and stigma that continue to drive the epidemic.

Today, African-Americans represent 12% of the national population, but they account for 44% of Americans living with HIV, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Gay and bisexual men comprise only 2% of the American population, but they represented 30% of the nation's HIV infections in 2010.

Around 4,000 Americans are infected with HIV each year because of injection drug use, and one in seven HIV-positive Americans pass through a correctional facility each year. The crisis is particularly acute in the American South, where homophobia is rampant.

I hope HBO's production of "The Normal Heart" will compel a new generation to act up. There is so much work still to be done, but there's also so much potential. The characters in "The Normal Heart," living as they did in the 1980s, didn't understand what they or their friends were dying of, and they didn't have treatments to manage the disease. They hardly knew how to protect themselves.

Today, we know how to protect everyone, and we have the ability to treat every single person living with HIV. Yet AIDS continues to prey upon the most vulnerable in our society: the poor, the incarcerated, sex workers, drug users, and those living in regions where intolerance and stigma are facts of life. Today, as ever, silence equals death.

Elton John uses photography to fight AIDS

As Larry so forcefully taught us nearly 30 years ago -- and as he and Ryan Murphy, the director of the new HBO film, continue to remind us today -- we must speak out against injustice, act with compassion, and fight for equality.

If enough of us raise our voices, we can finally begin to end this epidemic.

Editor's Note: HBO, like CNN, is owned by Time Warner.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.

She blames agency for dad's death

• Pedro Valdez repeatedly tried, failed to get appointments with Phoenix VA, his daughter says


• He ended up being hospitalized before seeing a VA doctor; he died in January


• The VA hasn't responded to this specific claim, but is looking into general allegations


• Valdez's daughter: The VA "kicked him when he was down, when he needed them"

(CNN) -- Pedro Valdez, a Vietnam veteran, wanted help. And he knew where to get it -- through the Phoenix VA -- or so he thought.

Again and again, starting in December 2012, Valdez would try to schedule with -- and would even show up to see -- doctors at Department of Veterans Affairs medical facilities in Arizona about his shortness of breath, according to his daughter. He thought he had gotten confirmed appointments; even toting cards with a specific date and time.

"He'd have the card in hand, go to check in, and they'd tell him, 'Mr. Valdez, you don't have an appointment in the computer. We have no idea what you're talking about," his daughter Priscella Valdez told CNN.

In October 2013, Pedro Valdez showed up at his daughter's house after going in for another appointment that never happened. His daughter set out then to make sure Valdez had a firm time in the VA computers, not just written down on a card. The next available slot he could get, after all that effort, was in three months, on January 6, 2014, according to his daughter.

VA's Shinseki writes letter to vets

Veterans group outraged over VA scandal

VA no-shows as answers sought in scandal

VA wait lists include returning troops

Pedro Valdez never made it.

On New Year's Eve 2013, he struggled for breath and was rushed to a private hospital. Valdez was diagnosed with acute respiratory failure; "he was only breathing at 50%," according to his daughter. The next day, he was in intensive care.

And six days later -- on January 7, a day after he was to finally see a doctor at the Phoenix VA -- he was dead. He was 66.

Priscella Valdez remembers her dad as a man who "made it out of a gruesome, gruesome, gruesome war," who dutifully worked in construction, who raised three children on his own and who never put himself first. More than anything, she remembers him as her "best friend."

She believes that the system that was supposed to care for him -- a man who'd risked his life for his country -- instead let him down.

"They took a man and broke him down and kicked him when he was down, when he needed them," Priscella Valdez said. "... These people who were supposed to take care of him are able to live freely."

The Valdez family is not the first to levy accusations against the federal agency charged with overseeing health care and benefits of veterans and their dependents.

CNN first reported six months ago about allegations of alarming shortcomings within the VA medical care system that, according to the VA, led to 23 deaths.

The VA's troubled history

The allegations include the possible destruction of a secret waiting list for care at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care System. There have also been claims of delayed care and cooked books at VA facilities nationwide.

The VA did not respond to a CNN request for a response to the Valdez family's specific allegation. And because of privacy laws, it is hard to know if Pedro Valdez was on anyone's list at the Phoenix VA, secret or not.

Phoenix officials deny there's a secret wait list

The VA's Office of the Inspector General is now investigating these various allegations at 26 VA facilities, and there have been hearings on Capitol Hill. Priscella Valdez has been among those speaking up; CNN first learned of her family's story after she appeared at a forum in Phoenix featuring Sen. John McCain in the wake of the scandal.

Much of the focus has been on the VA's management back in Washington, including calls for Secretary Eric Shinseki to be fired. Yet Priscella Valdez says no one looking into this matter can fully comprehend the frustration and the torment experienced by families like hers, who just want their loved ones looked after in a fair, responsible, humane way.

"I don't think anybody clearly understands what's going on," she says, "unless you actually lived it and you're going through it."

VA investigating Florida hospital wait lists

One way for soccer to get attention

• Landon Donovan has 57 goals and 58 assists in international career, both U.S. records


• Coach Jurgen Klinsmann says he left Donovan off roster because other players are better


• For all the highlights Donovan has amassed, performances of late have been lacking


• If any player on roster is injured before World Cup, Donovan could be back, coach says

(CNN) -- Fifty-seven.

That's the number of goals Landon Donovan has scored for the U.S. national soccer team. It's 19 more than the total goals racked up by the No. 2 all-time scorer, World Cup captain Clint Dempsey.

It's also one fewer than Donovan's career assist tally, 58, which is 36 more setups than Hall of Fame midfielder Cobi Jones had in his lengthy career.

The only major benchmarks where Donovan isn't tops are shutouts, a statistic designated for goalkeepers and defenders, and caps, or game appearances, a stat in which Jones leads Donovan 164-156.

In not just a personal highlight, but one of the greatest moments in American soccer, Landon Donovan, foreground left, celebrates with teammate Edson Buddle after scoring an injury-time goal against Algeria, propelling the United States into the knockout round of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

In 2012, Donovan led the United States to a 5-1 victory with his hat trick against Scotland during a friendly in Jacksonville, Florida.

United States soccer fans went wild when Donovan scored the second goal to put his squad up 2-0 in a Confederations Cup game against vaunted Brazil in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2009. It wouldn't be enough, as there's a reason Brazil was vaunted. The United States would eventually fall 2-3.

During a 2009 World Cup qualifier in Chicago, Donovan notched the goal to sink Honduras 2-1 and punch the United States' ticket to the World Cup. He would earn Honda's Player of the Year and Player of the Decade designations that year.

On January 19, 2008, in an international friendly in Carson, California, Donovan set the U.S. all-time scoring record, 35, with a penalty kick against Sweden.

Donovan celebrates at Chicago's Soldier Field after a 2-1 win over archrival Mexico during the 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup tournament. The United States won the Cup with the help of four goals from Donovan, who would tie Eric Wynalda as the club's all-time leading scorer that year.

Donovan slides the ball around the outreached leg of Ecuador's Giovanny Espinoza in a 2007 international friendly match in Tampa, Florida. It was one of his three goals in the 3-1 win.

The United States needed a win over Costa Rica during a 2005 World Cup qualifier in Salt Lake City. Here, Donovan celebrates his second goal in the 3-0 win.

In a 2003 CONCACAF Gold Cup quarterfinal match against a rather weak Cuba team, Donovan put on one of the most impressive performances of his career, burying a record-tying four goals in the United States' 5-0 win.

It's one thing to beat Mexico in a friendly or World Cup qualifier, but in the World Cup's Round of 16? Elation. From left to right, Tony Sanneh, Brian McBride, Claudio Reyna and Landon Donovan celebrate McBride's first goal in the match. Donovan would later frost the cake, making it 2-0 and sending the United States to the 2002 quarterfinals against Germany, which they lost controversially.

Highlights of Landon Donovan's career

Highlights of Landon Donovan's career

Highlights of Landon Donovan's career

Highlights of Landon Donovan's career

Highlights of Landon Donovan's career

Highlights of Landon Donovan's career

Highlights of Landon Donovan's career

Highlights of Landon Donovan's career

Highlights of Landon Donovan's career

Highlights of Landon Donovan's career

Highlights of Landon Donovan's career

It's simple math, which is why, to fans casual and ardent, coach Jurgen Klinsmann's decision to leave the orchestrator of 115 goals off the 23-player World Cup roster doesn't add up.

Donovan descartado del Mundial

Patrick Vieira tackles Senegal education

Patrick Vieira: How to win a World Cup

The sports world expressed outrage at Thursday's announcement -- and not your typical ho-hum soccer outrage (they flop! it's too low-scoring!), but real, palpable baseball- or football-esque outrage.

Americans, many of them thoughtfully, questioned a personnel decision, like they might question the Philadelphia Eagles not re-signing Mike Vick.

But this is soccer, and American soccer at that. So if Klinsmann is honest in saying that his goal is to raise soccer's profile in the United States, snubbing Donovan seems to have done the trick.

Now come the questions, the doubts, the Monday-morning goalkeepers. While some speculated whether Donovan's age (32) or perceived lack of heart -- he said in 2012 he wasn't sure if he wanted to go to Brazil and last year went on sabbatical during an arduous World Cup qualifying campaign -- others simply denounced the decision.

Bruce Arena, who coaches Donovan for Major League Soccer's Los Angeles Galaxy and also skippered the 2002 and 2006 World Cup squads, told the San Jose Mercury-News, "If there are 23 better players than Landon, then we have a chance to win the World Cup."

Meanwhile, soccer guru and Sports Illustrated writer Grant Wahl flatly stated, "Cutting Landon Donovan will prove to be a mistake."

Not everyone was so diplomatic, as some folks resorted to calling the move shortsighted or the machination of a madman. Of course, there were a few anti-German epithets hurled at Klinsmann on Twitter as well (never mind that he's a 1996 FIFA World Player of the Year who coached an unheralded German squad to a third-place 2006 World Cup finish).

More angry barbs were pointed squarely at the youngsters named to the squad -- in particular, Julian Green, 18, DeAndre Yedlin, 20, and John Brooks, 21, whose combined caps total a whopping six. Fans also decried the selection of Brad Davis, a 32-year-old MLS player who, while wicked with set pieces, at just 14 caps doesn't own a resume nearly as shimmering as Donovan's.

Klinsmann defended his squad -- and Green, Yedlin and Brooks -- in a Friday press conference, saying, "They might surprise some people."

As for Donovan, Klinsmann said other players were "a tiny little bit ahead of him," and though he didn't want to go into details, he alluded to Donovan not having the speed and ankle-breaking one-on-one skills he once possessed. Donovan recently acknowledged himself that he struggles to find the motivation to train at 100%. Still, Klinsmann said at the press conference, Donovan's a "great passer" with lots of experience.

Bodo Illgner remembers 1990 World Cup triumph

Bosnia's long journey to the World Cup

Chaos during Brazil transit strike

Jungle venue challenging for World Cup

Donovan accepted the decision maturely, saying he was disappointed.

"Regardless, I will be cheering on my friends and teammates this summer, and I remain committed to helping grow soccer in the U.S. in the years to come," he wrote on Facebook. He has promised to field questions about his omission from the team Saturday at the StubHub Center in Carson, California, where his Galaxy play.

If he never took the field again for the United States, Donovan will have left an indelible mark on the team and its history.

Forget all the goals, assists or the hat tricks against Scotland, Ecuador and Cuba (he actually hung four on Cuba). There are reasons Donovan has earned a sort of cult fame among U.S. soccer's fan base, and notoriety among America's casual fans.

He's one of the primary reasons fans of archrival Mexico shudder when they hear the chant "dos a cero" (two to zero). The most glorious dos a cero for American fans came when Donovan buried the second goal in the 2002 World Cup round of 16. He scored four goals to lead the men's national team to a 2007 Gold Cup trophy and netted the winner against Honduras to earn the United States a ticket to the 2010 World Cup. He donned sunglasses that someone threw at him during a quarterfinal match in the 2013 Gold Cup quarterfinal, of which he was the inarguable star, and he's the reason Mexican fans chanted "Osama! Osama!" after he urinated, yup, on the consecrated pitch of Guadalajara's Jalisco Stadium in 2003.

And then there was the 2010 World Cup game against Algeria.

With only injury time left, the score 0-0 and the United States' hopes of advancing looking dim if not dead, the U.S. team launched a lightning counterstrike. Goalkeeper Tim Howard hit Donovan in stride. Donovan pushed the ball out to striker Jozy Altidore on the wing, who drove into Algeria's penalty area and attempted to set up Clint Dempsey. Dempsey's shot caromed off Algeria's goalkeeper into the path of Donovan, who buried it for a 1-0 win.

From Boston to Barstow, America's soccer faithful went nuts. How nuts? This nuts.

That's history, however. Donovan would be the first to say he's not the No. 10 of old. He has yet to score in seven games for his club this year, and his performances for the national team have been such that Klinsmann pulled him out of a World Cup qualifier against Jamaica last year and benched him during an April friendly against Mexico.

But for all the talk about Donovan's future and questions over whether the curtains have closed on a distinguished international career, Klinsmann told the Donovan-minded reporters at Friday's press conference that much could happen between now and June 16, when the USA takes on Ghana.

Should, heaven forbid, any of Team America's eight midfielders or four forwards suffer an injury in the run-up to the Cup, the coach said, Donovan could be right back in the fold. And all this ranting and raving could be for nothing.

Knight says don't doubt woman who walked away

• Judgmental attitudes could keep others being abused from coming forward, Michelle Knight says


• Some neighbors have questioned California woman's abduction story, saying she seemed happy


• Knight, freed from captivity in 2013, says no one else knows what woman was going through


• Threats and mental manipulation are worse than chains, Elizabeth Smart says

(CNN) -- Stop judging the California woman who walked away from her alleged captor after a decade, an angry and emotional Michelle Knight told CNN's "New Day" Friday.

"Unless you were walking in her shoes, you have no reason to talk, none at all," said Knight, one of three women freed from years of brutal captivity in a Cleveland home in 2013.

Knight was referring to the case of a California woman who approached police after contacting her sister on Facebook, saying she had been abducted by her mother's boyfriend at 15, then raped, beaten and forced to marry her captor.

In the days since the woman's story came to light, some neighbors in the Bell Gardens neighborhood where she lived with the man and their 3-year-old child have questioned the abduction story, saying she appeared to be happy and well cared for.

"She never showed a sad face or worried face," said a neighbor who identified herself only as Erika.

"She had plenty of time to actually escape so it's hard to believe this is really going on because she had a lot of free time."

California kidnap victim found

Attorney: Nothing to kidnapping claims

Smart: 'Threat' stronger than 'chains'

Knight has just one answer to those doubting the woman's story: You couldn't possibly understand.

"Just because you're not chained up and you're not locked in the basement doesn't mean you ain't trapped," she told CNN's Kate Bolduan. "I know exactly what it feels like to be trapped in your own mind, your emotional mind, and told you can't do anything about it, nobody will care about what you say."

Knight was held in Ariel Castro's Cleveland home from August 2002 until May 2013 when her fellow captive Amanda Berry summoned help from a neighbor to break out of the locked house.

Sometimes chained, frequently brutalized, Knight said the worst part of her decade of captivity was the isolation and the psychological manipulation her captor held over her.

"I was threatened to be killed. I was threatened that nobody cared about me," she said.

"For a girl like her the emotional torture is so painful that she chose not to hurt other people," Knight said. "Because he may have threatened to hurt her, he may have threatened to hurt the people that she was talking to."

Elizabeth Smart, who also was abducted, had a similar message in an interview Thursday with CNN's Chris Cuomo on "New Day."

"Well, as a survivor who has been chained up in physical chains and also had the chains of threats held over me, I can tell you firsthand that threat is so much stronger than physical chains," said Smart, who was abducted from her Salt Lake City home in 2002.

"Now, I don't have intimate details on what threats he was holding over her head, but I understand that he was holding her family, that he was threatening her family and, for me, that was the strongest threat anyone could have ever made to me," she said.

Knight said she worries that questions such as those raised about the California woman's case will keep other people suffering from abuse from coming forward and seeking help.

"You're making people not want to come out, not want to say anything," she said, her voice breaking. "You're making people want to sit there and keep it to themselves and go through the abuse when you say stupid crap like that."

The California woman's alleged captor, Isidro Garcia, 42, was arrested during a traffic stop Wednesday.

He is charged with a felony count of forcible rape, three felony counts of lewd acts on a minor and a felony count of kidnapping to commit a sexual offense.

If convicted of all three crimes, he could face life in prison.

CNN's Eliott C. McLaughlin contributed to this report.