VA letter for help to the editor 4-17-08

VA letter for help to the editor 4-17-08
Peter Macdonald 465 Packersfalls Rd Lee NH 03824 603-659-6217
VA health care receives good review, they may deserve this in some area’s but what about the Veteran’s swept under the rug or lost by the system. I recently applied for PTSD disability because I got it from my time in the Marine Corps. My percentage is 100% disabled already and it has been since I was discharged from the MC in 1974. I never talked about my daily visions of my first kill, I just accepted them as my punishment for what I did. I broke my back during a combat offensive and lost most of my hearing from being blown off a runway during another offensive. I served 31 months overseas after I lost my complete memory from a car accident after boot came. I started life over. To this day my memory of any part of my life prior to the Marine Corps has never come back because of a damaged brain. I have still no memory of my siblings or parents. I learned every part of life over again as a U.S. Marine. I learned never take credit for any thing. I learned to deflect paperwork to keep my record simple and clean. I could do my job or any mission assigned to me with out failure. I learned never let pain or any weakness show. Marines like NH State Rep. Baldasario tell me that Marines do not talk about combat events. I was never in combat and how long is it correct to not talk about the wrongs that I committed. Life back here in the “world” U.S. has been confusing since I came here.
I did eight convoys as an American advisor to bring friendly camps, deep in the “bush” supplies. I rode in the lead truck across Thailand, Laos and Cambodia with men that did not speak American for days at a time. Until a few years ago when I wrote a book I would never mention these convoys. I never mentioned the reoccurring memory of the night that I was taken from a friendly village we stopped for the night at. The look in the about 10 year old boy’s eyes as I removed the bayonet and released my hand from his mouth as he fell to the ground dead. The scared young Marine that took his M-16 back, ran through the “bush” to the village and silently awoke the drivers to start the convoy early that day. My fear of the other two awakening and retaken me to a conflict our nation did not recognize. A nation that I called home and had no memory of. I was a naïve young Marine completing a mission as an American advisor with out question.
One night while stationed at MCAS Iwakuni Japan my unit CO sent me on a mission to repair unit gear on a isolated MCAS in Vietnam. A long ride on jets and a CH-53 to a place even God did not recognize allowed me to experience enemy bullets pass with in inches of my head. I used an out house only to see it seconds after I left be destroyed by enemy mortar. I completed the mission and with in I guess 36 hours I was back in Japan never to by orders speak about the mission.
Just while writing this letter I received a call from Dr Dan. Doctor Potenza is a VA doctor whom I think of as a friend. You see I left the U.S. on vacation last week and don’t remember most of my life back here. Parts will come back as I read and listen to conversations around me. This letter started out in response to a PTSD application that was in my mail today. I just this moment remembered that my VA medical was stopped. Confused, you should see this world from my eyes. It just at this moment does not make sense. Tears have started flowing from my eyes. Why? My shooting thoughts of death, destruction and people in hooch’s compels me to want to die. I will not do that because then the VA will win. The words appear from my fingers but I will have to learn more back ground before I can claim to understand what I have written here. I started out writing about VA health care and Dr Dan’s phone call appears to have reminded me of something best forgotten. I never thought that my night mares were a disability. They are just my memory of the places life started for me. The VA is a great organization but even they commit wrongs that need to be corrected. Maybe some day I will know why I wrote this letter to people that I assume do exist and may be they will read it.
Peter Macdonald Sgt USMC Semper Fi