Death of a Veteran 5-20-08

Death of a Veteran 5-20-08
Peter Macdonald 465 Packersfalls rd Lee NH 03824 603-659-6217
People thought that my giving coffee to a Homeless Veteran last Sunday was a nice thing to do. I do not want credit for helping a person especially someone that gave his childhood and life for us. Here is a man that served our country fighting so that we all could stay free, now living on the streets of Syracuse NY. This is only the one Veteran that I met. How many other children go off to fight for us and come back looking healthy, but have that silent daemon growing in their heads. For years this Veteran lived a great life with a wife, kids and prospered all the while living silently with what he did as a U.S. Marine. One day people that we love cast us aside because they can not conceive what we did many years earlier, could still be there. Legally, we killed, maimed, and destroyed every thing around us. We grew by loosing our emotions to feel compassion for that which became daily events. We grew by accepting living conditions that would make you puke. We ate food like pigs, that even a pig would cast aside. We became U.S. military veterans not by choice, but to protect Our freedom. We the people of the United States of America forget about our Veterans. We have since the creation of the U.S. Token jesters are made during election years or when someone in government needs to improve their image to the voters. Newspapers refuse to print the opinion letter of a veteran unless it portrays in some fashion the newspapers and societies believes.
The years pass and a small part of guilt grows as the people around us insinuate that what our military do is wrong. We learn that the society that we protected can not accept the images of what we are. We came back to a place that we do not belong.
I am a 100% disabled Veteran that had his medical care for injuries received while serving stopped. Two of my three separate injuries came during combat support missions. I live with the memory of sticking a bayonet in the gut of a child while on convoy. The newspapers refuse to tell the truth so society and my friends restrict my enjoyment and freedom. One newspapers source of information tells that I never served in the Marine Corps. The VA inspector general of NH, Boston Globe newspaper and the NH government through the state police tell me to commit suicide. I volunteer every day to help others because I came back alive and I owe the respect and gratitude to all those that gave their child hood and life fighting for the U.S. since its creation. I give because I do not look or act disabled. I give because I came back to a place that I do not belong and I need to die. I do not bend because homeless veterans, disabled veterans, Healthy returning veterans with hidden illnesses, disabled veterans receiving substandard care, and those veterans just returning to a society that does not even try to understand.
I do not volunteer to be recognized I volunteer to make the United States better for all. I am a veteran silenced by a society that only wants to recognize good.
Peter Macdonald Sgt USMC Semper Fi