Homeless Veterans and Veteran Suicide

I've been meaning to write about veterans, homeless veterans and veteran suicide for some time but it is difficult to try and explain a situation that most people will never even come close to understanding. The treatment of American veterans, men and women who lay their lives on the line to protect the American way of life, is a national disgrace. Giving the best years of their life to fight in America's endless wars to protect corporate profits and political careers, when their service is up, they are thanked by being forgotten and kicked to the curb. America does not want reminders of eighty years of lost wars and failed military incursions around the world. When these veteran's service is up, their service to the nation is quickly shoved aside and the government wants these reminders of America's failed military campaigns, human beings and American citizens all, out of sight and out of mind as quickly as possible.

I am not a war hero, I have never been in combat and my military career was the typical mix of boredom and loneliness. I did my job and was honorably discharged. I never gave much thought to being a veteran, especially since I was a veteran of the Vietnam War era, a hugely unpopular war which the United States lost, abandoned it's allies and divided the nation to the point, as we see today, of civil war. America has not "won" a war in eighty years, despite being almost constantly involved in one. The Vietnam veterans were treated worse by the nation they defended more than any other American servicemen in history. The typical American did not grasp the fact that most of these veterans were conscripts, forced into the military under threat of criminal punishment. They did not start the war, they did not run the war, they had no power over their own lives, yet they received the bulk of the hate and disrespect that should have gone to corrupt politicians. In light of this, I never brought up my military service unless asked. I don't have red, white and blue anything. I don't fly the American flag or display any military symbols. On Veterans Day I was usually working. Looking out the window of my business at the homeless veterans passing by always made me sad to see a human life wasted for no reason except money. I never realized at the time that my life would change in a split second and that homeless veteran would be me.

I became a homeless veteran quickly and without warning. On a dark, remote Oregon state highway, while stopped for a construction zone flagman, I was hit from behind by a forty ton semi truck doing fifty miles an hour. I was injured and my truck and just about everything in it was destroyed. Following the accident, my insurance company refused to honor my policy and the insurance company for the truck driver who hit me refused to pay for any medical bills or damages and on the street I went. Homeless because I obeyed the law.

Following the accident, I appealed to the congressmen/women in my home state as well as the governors of my state and Oregon, where the accident occurred. I contacted the Insurance Commissioner and the Veterans Administration with the same question; "How can I be so heavily penalized for obeying the law?" There was not a single response. Every government official I contacted did not raise a finger to help a law abiding citizen, all of them backing the insurance companies right not to pay for any damages. When I contacted the state of Oregon to try and get information regarding the accident, I was threatened with arrest and told by a man who identified as an Oregon State trooper, "if I wasn't careful, I might wind up the next veteran suicide". About a year after the accident, a judge in Washington state ruled that neither the driver or owner of the truck was responsible for the accident.

For more than five years now, I have been living with the many homeless veterans in the most affluent parts of the United States and it is as sad a story as there is in the long, and getting longer, record of sad stories of American history. The truth about homeless American veterans, and probably the vast majority of the rapidly growing number of homeless Americans, is never going to come from the United States government, because at the end of the story, that's who is to blame for the homeless problems in America. I may not have been in combat during my time in the military, but I am on the front line of the collapse of American society in 2024 and I feel an obligation to record what I see. To see these people hiding from the society they were obligated to sacrifice their lives for is proof enough that America, has a nation and as a society, has completely failed and something has to be done.

The impetus to write this was delivered by two articles I saw on the internet regarding displaced veterans. The first article, published about a month ago, was about and organization that claimed to have spent a considerable sum of money, at least $250,000 according to the article, to purchase a building to house homeless veterans. This building is a couple hours away from here, if the information in the article can be believed. I am in an area where homeless veterans, who have the means, have been coming since the end of the Vietnam War. If you were looking for homeless veterans, you would not have to go one hundred yards past the entrance to find as many homeless veterans you want. No one ever comes here regarding the veteran's situation. The only government-related people here collect money FROM the homeless veterans to live on government land for free. The supposed veterans "organization" who are allegedly providing veteran housing are most likely the same as nearly all veterans "organizations". They use the plight of homeless veterans to collect money, then pocket the money and the homeless veterans, as always, get nothing. If the money that went to veterans "organizations" went directly to homeless veterans, there would be no homeless veterans.

The second article was about the Veterans Administration claiming to have helped 500,000, that's a half a million, veterans via their Veterans Helpline. I am not sure who is doing the math here, but from my own direct personal experience with the VA, as well as what other homeless veterans have said to me, none of us would even consider calling this "helpline", I'll tell you why. The Veterans Administration is the United States government, the same government that broke their promise to care for veterans who needed it in the first place. The United States government is only interested in one thing; money. Veterans who receive care from the VA cost money. Veterans who do not receive VA care cost nothing, as do veterans who are dead. When a veteran calls the Helpline, he identifies himself as someone needing help. Help costs money, money the government doesn't want to spend on some veteran. When a veteran needs help now, today, the VA may schedule an appointment months or years away. I guess the VA has done this 500,000 times. That's what help from the government is for a veteran. Of the many homeless veterans I have spoken with in the past five years, I can't recall a single one saying they trusted and depended on the VA. After all, the government offering to help is the same government that put us in need of help in the first place.

When I went to the VA for the first time, I was grateful because a VA doctor helped with a serious medical issue that no other local healthcare facility, mainly concerned with generating income, was able to address in a half dozen office visits. Since then, my healthcare through the VA has deteriorated to nearly nothing. I have blood tests done every two years to remain eligible to continue receiving life saving medication, for which I am thankful, but I have not seen a doctor in years. I'm thankful for the hearing aids from the VA. If I didn't have to wait two years following the accident to get a replacement pair, I might have been able to get a job and avoid losing everything and becoming homeless. I have serious medical issues from being hit by the semi truck, but receive no medical treatment. My last encounter with the VA was with a "Tele Med" phone call with a doctor a thousand miles away who did not know anything about my medical or living situation. When I asked for help with my injuries, the doctor prescribed over the counter medication that I told the doctor five years ago had no effect on my injuries. At this point, like the veterans with more experience than me, I have given up on the VA. I don't have a single bad thing to say about the people who work for the VA. I've always been treated with respect and professionalism from the medical staff. They just don't have the resources. It's the VA administration and their policies I have the problem with. However, I hope I can continue to get the medication I need to stay alive from the VA, but from here on, I won't ask for any more assistance. I don't get the healthcare I need and I've lost trust in the medical business to provide it. No more inoculations or medical procedures that requires surgery. If I die on the side of the road from some easily treatable disease, I can be written off as another unfortunate veteran suicide.

What about veteran suicide? Why do so many veterans kill themselves? I don't have all the answers, but I have more answers that I wish I did not know. As I said earlier, since the semi truck accident, I have been under threat of "veteran suicide" from the Oregon State Police, so I feel qualified to be a veteran suicide spokesman. I say too much, fifteen bullets from a police officer's weapon, the facts take a trip through the police department evidence fabrication department and you have another veteran suicide. I don't know how common this is, but I'm certainly not the first. It's a non-stop cycle of betrayal, disappointment, failed promises and for some, a mental or physical torture chamber. Veteran suicide isn't one guy killing himself, it's a team effort. More like extended torture and murder. Instead of a prisoner of war, he's a prisoner of society.

When I was younger and the guys who were a couple years older started coming back from Vietnam, a lot of them had problems. I knew one guy who probably the worst choice possible for a combat soldier. Some people are not killers, no matter what you do. A super nice, funny guy who obviously did not get the help he needed. One day, with no warning, he killed himself. This was a sobering event for me and my friends who were about to be conscripted into the American military. A human life, wasted for no reason. Used and discarded. With older veterans, like me, some have lost spouses, kids have moved away, house is gone, on top of physical or mental issues with no hope of recovery. Things can get pretty dark.

Among the homeless veterans who are now my neighbors, suicide is rarely mentioned, but it's always there. We all know that every man has his limits and we are all very close to ours. You can only push a man so far. Some vets have killed people, only to realize later that there was no threat to America and those people did not need to die, but they killed them anyway. Somebody's son, a young child's father, gone forever. Being a killer, a murderer, is a heavy burden to live with. War is a form of insanity. Some of it is going to stick with you. In the military, you learn the harsh reality of the American Lie. America kills to get it's way and naïve young men do the killing. When their service is done, they are kicked back to the streets. Their friends are years ahead of them, starting families and careers, the recently discharged finds himself left behind, having missed the most important days of his life. If the veteran has been wounded, mentally or physically, he will most likely never catch up with his peers and spend his days earning much less income than people his age and never reaching his potential as a human being. If he tries to get the help he needs and deserves, he will find out that as an expense to the government, the help promised to him and other veterans is an illusion. You know that the American government has no regard or respect for human life.

People kill themselves because they have no hope for the future, no chance to turn things around, worn down by life that they are no longer a part of. Veterans have even more heavy baggage; the never ending horror of combat that no human being who has not experienced it can begin to understand. The realization at a young age that your best years have been used up and you will never get them back. Your peers with four years of job experience will get the job before your four years of experience as a government tool every time. No civilian will ever understand the mental baggage a veteran has to live with and the overwhelming majority of them don't care. The government that you protected with your life is done with you. If you're suffering and you need the help the government promises all veterans, start learning how to beg. The government says you're a hero, because it makes them look good, but to them, you're nothing but an unwanted expense.

Will killing yourself end the pain and suffering? Absolutely, 100% yes. Of course, all decisions are final and there's no going back. The world is full of pain and suffering, why doesn't everybody kill themselves? If you're a believer of some faith, if you die, you're in heaven the next day. Why delay in a miserable place like this? The answer is simple. Real or perceived, most people have a reason to live. They also have not seen their friend's head blown off from three feet away. We are living in a time of unprecedented confusion and uncertainty. Every human being has a limit to what they can endure, many people are at, or past that limit now. On top of that, we live in a failing society where a human life is basically worthless. You get to the point where there is no reason to go on.