American veteran suicide is not suicide, it is the final result of lack of treatment. More than twenty American veterans end their own lives every day. I’ve known at least four of them personally. I am also a veteran, not a combat veteran or war hero, but a few months, I will be joining them, so I feel I am as qualified to speak about veteran suicide. I will explain in precise detail how the Veterans Administration balances the budget by denying veterans essential health care, then offers false hope and more lies until the veteran realizes one way or another, he’s at the end of the road. His life is out of his control and the only thing left is to shut it down and hope for something better beyond this life of lies.
If you are not a veteran, or no one in your family has served in the military, why should you care? Most people don’t. They take veteran’s sacrifices for granted. The President of the United States, Donald Trump, a multiple time draft dodger who refused to serve the country has declared veterans “suckers” for serving. Veterans problems start at the very top with the “Commander in Chief” and “trickle down” to your local VA Clinic. I mean, how much money is the American government going to spend on a bunch of suckers? The organization that is running the Veterans Administration(VA) healthcare system is in charge of your healthcare as well, and they balance the budget in the same way, so you may want to read on.
This documentation starts in October, 2018. It is arranged on a timeline from then until the date this article is published in 2026. Following a semi truck accident in October 2018, I received multiple threats from insurance company “representatives” and threats from state police where the accident occurred to “make me the next veteran suicide”, I kept records and recorded every thing I could. I knew I was in with people who would kill me and I wanted to have something that would tell my side of the story should I wind up the “next veteran suicide”. As a writer, after a couple years, I realized I was documenting the failure of American society so I have tried to be as accurate as possible.
In 2018, I was hit from behind while stopped for a construction zone flagman by a forty ton semi traveling fifty miles an hour. I was seriously injured, my truck and everything in it totally destroyed. Following the accident, the semi truck driver assaulted me in a nearby truck stop. Both my insurance company and the truck driver’s insurance company refused to pay for any injures or damages and stole my truck and everything in it using false paperwork. I believe the patient reports from the local ER were falsified to favor the truck owner’s insurance company. The reason for this behavior is that the truck that hit me was owned by an Eastern European “family” in Chicago who transported cartel drugs across America. This was pretty much confirmed after repeated threats from the truck driver’s “insurance” company and threats from the Oregon State Police promising to “make me the next veteran suicide”.
Following the accident, in a matter of weeks, all my retirement savings were gone and I was living in the truck I purchased with that money. I was badly injured. I had no money, barely enough for food, no medical care. Over the counter pain medication was useless then, as it is today. For months following the accident, I could barely move. Intense pain all day and all night. Crippled and homeless. All because I stopped for a stop sign. The physical pain was terrible, but the mental trauma of resentment and anger was nearly overpowering.
At that point, I was now a homeless veteran. While I was trying to walk again, my left hip felt like it popped out the socket and caused me to fall. Thankfully, the hip popped back into place. It was extremely painful and it confirmed that I was seriously injured. I was able to drive to the local emergency room. After a quick X-ray, I was told there was nothing wrong. My hip popped out of the socket, I could barely walk or stand up, and there’s nothing wrong? I couldn’t believe it, but I was still coming to grips with being homeless and crippled for life with no money and did not have the energy to do anything at the time but record what was happening.
In June or July 2019, I had my first annual visit to the VA Clinic in The Dalles, OR since the accident. I had started with The Dalles VA Clinic after being poisoned by agricultural crop spraying in Hood River, OR. After nearly being killed by a medical clinic The Dalles, OR that was clearly set up to fleece people on MediCal, I went to the VA.
The Dalles VA Clinic is a small rural clinic where the staff and patients are from the same general vicinity. 2019 was the second, and last time, I spoke with a VA doctor in person. I told the doctor I was having serious trouble with my left arm and hips as a result of the semi truck accident less than a year ago. I told him a sixty seven year old man living in my truck in the Cascade Mountains was difficult with the untreated injures. I was clearly in pain, moving with a distinct limp and barely able to use my left arm. I told the doctor I was doing the best I can, but I could sure use some help. He looked at me but did not respond. Not “sure we’ll help you” or “no, we won’t help you”, just no response. Every visit to The Dalles Clinic since 2019 until 2025, I asked the same question every time with the same response. Any questions regarding injuries sustained in the October 2018 were completely ignored except for an offer for an in home yoga class, which is a cold insult to a homeless veteran who is being denied medical care.
Also around this time, because I am hearing impaired, I wear hearing aids, which I get from the VA. In the course of the 2018 truck accident, my hearing aids, which were in the glove compartment of my truck, were lost when the semi truck ripped the passenger side of the truck apart. The insurance companies refused to replace them, so I was now homeless and deaf. If I would have been able to hear, there was a chance I might have able to get back on my feet. Without being able to hear, not a chance. In desperation, I sued the people who destroyed my life in Small Claims Court in White Salmon, WA to get money to buy hearing aids. A judge in my home town of 1500 people bent over backwards to make sure the drug cartel got their way and put his “neighbor” on the street for life. The VA took a couple years, but finally replaced the hearing aids far too late for me to do anything about my situation. By not being able to get my hearing aids replaced, not only did it doom any chance I might have of ending my homeless situation, but I had to endure the COVID pandemic without being able to hear. Just when I started to learn to read people’s lips while speaking, everyone started wearing face masks. Essentially, nearly two years without meaningful communication with another human being. Very difficult and depressing.
While I was struggling with the VA, the pitifully corrupt American “justice” and various government agencies, I was living in my truck. As a homeless person, I was somewhat surprised to see how many people in this country do not have a permanent residence. A lot of homeless veterans like me. I met veterans who lived in their vehicles traveling around the country trying to find medical care. When asked how these veterans became homeless, most of them replied “insurance”. I was also made homeless by insurance, vehicle related insurance, but most of the homeless veterans I’ve met or spoke with lost everything due to medical insurance. Wife or kids got sick, insurance wouldn’t pay, they lost the house and possessions and on the street they went. Same story for “regular” homeless people. A sad, sad story repeated over and over again.
Unfortunately, I have also met several veterans who chose to end their own life. The story is the same every time. They were denied the care from the VA they desperately needed, and over a period of years, they realized the VA was not going to help them. The VA ignored their pleas for help, just like the VA is doing to me now. When the suffering is too much, their lives come to an end. The VA procedure is the same; ignore veterans requests for care. Ignoring requests for assistance leaves no record, denial or approval for care acknowledges the patient request for help and leaves the decision on the books. Living outdoors 24/7 365 days a year is tough, and as the years go by, untreated medical conditions get worse and pleas for medical care get more desperate. A veteran has 30 minutes a year to convince a talking head on a video screen that he needs medical attention. That task is never accomplished. The VA then diagnoses the veteran as having mental problems and places him in the largest Veterans Administration facility of all; the streets of America. When you are in a losing battle, the last bullet is saved for yourself.
This is the point I am at now. I know what’s going to happen because it’s happened thousands of times before. I first asked for medical care from the VA in July 2019. Every time I was in The Dalles VA Clinic for an appointment that wasn’t cancelled I asked for medical care as my injuries got worse. In 2024, one of the “Primary Care Provider” talking heads I have had(never the same one twice), told me straight up that he “didn’t believe what I was saying”, that I had mental problems and I needed to see a psychiatrist. At that point, I should have got up and walked out the door. The VA talking head was so far off with what he was saying, I was sure he was looking at the wrong patient files. Hit by a semi truck, unable to stand, walk, sit or sleep without intense pain. I have a pronounced limp and my left arm barely works. Symptoms that anyone can plainly see without any medical equipment and the VA diagnosis, without tests or interviews, is mental illness. Having spoken to many veterans who had already heard this, I knew that there would be no medical care now, or in the future from The Dalles VA Clinic. After this beneficial thirty minutes with the VA, my 2025 annual visit was cancelled an hour before the appointment. I was literally sitting in the parking lot.
With the injuries I have and no medical care, I have to face the hard facts. I moved away from my home in Washington for the last time, either to find a last hope, shot in the dark way out of this nightmare, or to find a nice place to die. When I left, I informed The Dalles VA I would not return for any further medical “care”. I asked them questions about my prescription medication that I need to live, they did not respond. I asked them to continue my medication until I found healthcare elsewhere. They said they would continue the medication, but I did not receive any medication for two months, so I left with no medication, no healthcare and a fabricated and/or inaccurate patient history. Without medication, I’m dead in two months. Without medical care for my hips, judging by the increasing pain/decreasing mobility, I think about six months is all I will be able to endure.
I went to Yuma AZ to try and get medical care. I can live outdoors without being arrested while seeking medical care, following in the footsteps of the veterans I had met earlier. I hoped that The Dalles VA Clinic was just a bad spot and any other VA Clinic would help a veteran like they claim. Since the healthcare “treatment” I was receiving from The Dalles VA was literally killing me, I did not want to continue with the Veterans Administration at all. I would take my chances with Medicare. When I started looking for doctors and healthcare, I found out quickly that it is hard enough to find a doctor who will take Medicare, finding a doctor who will take a veteran formerly on VA healthcare is impossible. A sympathetic physicians assistant at a community clinic told me that patients trying to exit VA healthcare are “walking malpractice lawsuits”.
The only option was the VA clinic in Yuma AZ. Knowing you’re going to die from a completely preventable cause and asking the people who are killing you for help is about as strange as it gets. No connection to reason or logic in any sense of the words. It’s moments like this you realize this civilization we live in is just about over, you really can’t trust anyone or anything. I wouldn’t get any medical help, but a trip to the Yuma VA Clinic was the last validating chapter to the sad and tragic story of American veterans.
I made an appointment at the Yuma VA, another small VA clinic in a small city with a lot of retired military. After a short wait in another disheartening VA waiting room, I was interviewed by a nurse(I think), who happened to be familiar with The Dalles VA Clinic. I told her about major injuries untreated for years, but all I wanted was enough prescription medication for six months so I could wrap up my affairs. No lab tests, no video treatment, no social workers. I only asked for one of the three prescription medications I use because I thought I would be lucky to get one out of three.
I was questioned by pharmacist or procurement person about the medication I needed most. Apparently, it was not readily available in their pharmacy system. Once found, she told me the word that ties everything together. “This drug is really expensive”. In the end, that’s always what it’s about. Why will the VA treat some patients, but not others? She even told me “I look fine” even though I’m here begging for critical medicine so I have some time to make arrangements before I die. They were able to fill one of the prescriptions, which I use in addition to the main medication, but no real help for me. I was told that the Portland VA had mailed medication after I told them I did not want any medical care from The Dalles/Portland VA. I had a friend check my mail and there was nothing there from the Veterans Administration. Yuma mailed enough medication for a month, then I will be heading to the local ER once a month until I’ve had enough.
Again, I want to point out that everything here, all the injuries I have that require the VA treatment; COPD and physical damage, was done TO me. I did not cause these injures and had no chance to defend or protect myself. If America is the country it claims to be, the people who caused this damage would be responsible for their actions. Of course that is a lie, a propaganda myth to make the workers behave. Personal responsibility has nothing to do with American justice, listen to the judge. What that means is that instead of insurance companies paying for injuries and damages unquestionably caused by their clients, it is the American taxpayer footing the bill.
As I finish this story, which has been very tough to write, my hearing aids, that I get from the VA, for which I am grateful, have failed. It is now impossible to carry on a conversation. In public situations, I can’t really hear what people are saying. There’s no chance of having them replaced by the VA. If I can’t get expensive medication to stay alive, they certainly are not going to give expensive hearing aids to a guy who’s going to be dead in a few months. Not being able to communicate is going to be the end of any hope for anything. No hope of medical care, no more talking with my friends, a world devoid of contact and communication. Since it took two years for the VA to replace the hearing aids last time, I know what to expect. It won’t be two years this time around, but whatever time is left will be quiet.
And yet, the VA claims to help thousands of veterans every day, according to the VA. That may or may not count the twenty or so veterans that kill themselves every single day, including Veterans Day, because they may already been counted as “helped” several times. In my case, the refusal to provide treatment I have asked for, pleaded for, since 2019 is a major factor in my choice to not continue. A life of begging for help after everything has been taken from you with your hands tied behind your back is flat out betrayal. The people trying to “help” me are the same people that put me on the street and at death’s door. As I write this down, the words of veterans I’ve known who are gone echo in my head. It is not just my story.
There are a lot of veterans in the Veterans Administration system and many of them do get the healthcare they need, or all they are going to get these days. I’ve found from mine and other veteran’s stories, is that when you are a new patient with the VA, you’re optimistic. You believe the propaganda you’ve been fed since birth and as one of America’s Fighting Heroes, the VA will help you. Soon, you realize that, just like in the military, you are just body with a number on it. Finally, you realize that there is a limit to the care you will receive from the VA. If it’s enough, fine. If not, you suffer/and or die. Some veterans get the best care the VA can offer and the deserve every bit of it. Young men, body parts blown off, put back together and paraded before the cameras. This is even more of a tragedy because for every unfortunate victim like this of America’s endless wars, there’s probably dozens of veterans who will receive limited or be denied treatment to pay for it. After ten or twenty years, if America and/or the VA is still here, the guy who got put back together will be forgotten, like the vets before him and the soon to be forgotten vets behind him.
I wanted to keep this article 100% about American veterans. This is America and there is always more to the story than meets the eye. It’s not easy to accept the VA would refuse a veteran’s legitimate request for care and deliberately cause his death. It could be just a symptom of the failure of American civilization, which appears more and more likely every day, but I believe there is more. I believe the reason I could not get care was because I was “blacklisted” by insurance companies following the 2018 semi truck accident because they were protecting cartel drug trafficking. I was given a bogus “examination” in the local ER, could not get treatment from the VA, and received at least two questionable examinations at different emergency rooms. The insurance companies told me following the accident they would not pay for any injuries, and for once, they have kept their word. The insurance company is the only thing in common with these different situations. Read more about the American insurance cartel HERE.