Vermont 3-10-09

Vermont 3-10-09
Peter Macdonald 465 Packersfalls rd Lee NH 03824 603-659-6217
Do we know the people around us? My wife and I went to Okemo ski area on Sunday so she could ski with friends on Monday. The Ski area is located in Ludlow which is a nothing little town with some of the friendliest people that live their year round. My goal was to prevent my wife from doing the three hour drive to and from, alone in one day. I have a cousin that lives in East Dover Vermont that my wife described as about 20 miles away. It would be a great opportunity to visit and maybe help with some projects around his area. The heavy wet snow and the substandard RT 100, Vermont’s main corridor through the center of the state north to south made the what turned out to be a 2 hr drive impossible. I decided to walk around Ludlow and help people with the snow conditions. Okemo has a great Restaurant Bar and at about one o’clock lunch and a beer would be where I would wait the rest of the day for my wife and friends. What a huge, clean place this restaurant was. I was the only customer for the entire afternoon other than the quick beer stop of the infrequent skier. All the workers except one bar tender and one waitress were sent home. I was talking to the Bar tender about my attempt to go to E Dover to visit. The waitress over heard me and asked whom I knew there. When I told her my cousins name she used my cousins wife’s name and asked if that was the same person. I was shocked that this far from there, these two woman would know my cousin. It seemed that the waitress at one time owned a bakery in West Dover. My cousin started a program of delivering day old goods from several of the businesses in town to needy families in Dover and several other towns. I never quite understood how the bar tender knew him but she seemed too know him very well.
My cousin is the typical Marine story. At 18 he was drafted and went to Vietnam as a grunt. His assignment on patrol was tunnel rat. This is the Marine that goes in the hole to seek and destroy the gooks living in there. He came back to his home in Lynn Mass only to feel rejected. Agent Orange and continuing memories destroyed any chance of living the life that he left so many years earlier. He met his wife from Vermont, married her, took her last name, had three children and continue to inch out a successful life. The VA has rejected his claims of disabilities, which to any normal person the poor health of this Marine is clear. These two women knew of him but kept their distance because of his rough, questionable manners. They respect and cherish him for his continued efforts to help others any time, but ? These two women thanked me for telling them that My cousin was a Marine from the Vietnam Conflict. They told me that now my cousins personality made since and that they wish that they knew back years ago. I did not know my cousin was this type of person that lived in Vermont. I know a lot of people volunteer. It just seems that lately coming across other Marines volunteering, I seem to write about. I volunteer because I came back alive and I have to believe my volunteering makes what so many others gave their lives for will not be in vain. For over thirty years I thought that this was me not being able to forget that what I should not have done over there, (according to this civilized society that I returned to). Since the State of NH declared me a terrorist and took my freedom witnessing the deplorable conditions U.S. Military Veterans are driven to has made it clear people believe we are just rejects on the street. May be we need to understand our neighbors better. Thank You Vermont.
Peter Macdonald Sgt USMC Semper Fi