Public Death By Military Service : Suicide of Our Vets
copyright ©2015 Turtle Heart
Editorial Opinion
I am 66 years old today. I am a Vietnam vet. 1969. HHC : 1/18th : 1st Inf Div : MOS 91 Charlie. Yes. It was heartbreaking. I came home an animal. An unhappy animal. The old Indians saved me. From myself. From the wounds and rage.
Today. 22 vets will kill themselves. Suicide. Death and Gone. Every fucking day. There was only one man, to use the term loosely, who said no to important help for those men and women. Tom Coburn. A legal, registered and numbered and enrolled Oklahoma American Indian. A final poke in the ye before he crawled back under the rock he hides under when the sun is shining.
Today, on my birthday, the bill is supposed to be passed through, at last. So all of us who expected so much, are at last relieved. Until we find out it is not enough. And that’s what we will find out.
The Islamic State and the AlQuida cowards/sick dogs, must take a lot of satisfaction in this news. No one in America has ever publicly addressed this sad aspect of the death by suicide of our young people fighting for our “freedom”. This is clearly yet another way in which "the terrorists are winning"....
I have lived 46 years since coming home from my generation’s war. Thank you Grandfather. Somebody cared and helped me and reached out and saved me. I was suicidal when I came back. I was also a bit homicidal. I considered signing up for the coming “revolution”. Not many people realize, even today, that there were planes and ideas and money and people, serious people, thinking about an armed attack on the United Staes Government. On the personal level I was a dangerous, malcontented American Citizen. I had the good sense to look for help. It was nowhere to be found in the government, at the VA or in church I could find anywhere. My parents wanted nothing to do with me. Zero. They were terrified and disgusted. My brother was already smashed and burned up, yet still alive in a destroyed body, from his journey to Vietnam a few years before. We have not spoken a word since 1971. Not one word. Tomorrow he will be 70 years old. Another vet who lived those years.
These lost soldiers break my heart. Suicide. Twenty Two or more every day. 22. Aren’t statistics just great? Those lost lives. Those fatherless children. Those widows. Those mothers and fathers who buried their children. Our United States Congress. Our Senators. Rush Limbaugh. Bill Maher. Scott Walker. Chris Christy. War criminal Richard “The Balls” Cheney. From the fields of sorrow, into the wilderness of conservative politics and the “colored” United States President. Contrasts and Outrage. A search for coherence. A difficult, painful and confusing search it is. Wandering in the darkness without a light.
If some mad dog was murdering 22 people every day, the entire national would be mobilized. The truth is, is is rarely mentioned. It appears to be a more or less invisible wound, un-addressed in American Society.
My 46 years of life after surviving my war. The struggle of that experience, my friends, has never gone away. It has not full healed. I have not completely forgiven. My country. Myself. Happy Birthday Turtle Heart. Welcome Home. May God Bless You. Peace To You My Brother….yes. I accept.
46 years ago I went Under the Drum. I went inside the Ma.do-sho-Win. The old Indians carried me. I was able to pass through and keep going. Originally I wanted to be a biologist/zoologist, a man of science working with Animals. The War changed all that. In order to survive I had to make different choices. I had to pass through hell, through loneliness and isolation, through fists and jails and fear to hold that sacred pipe, to be touched by that eagle feather, to find that song. To become a Keeper of the sacred peace, of the awakened dreamer. I did that. Myself. All alone, almost on four legs. Bleeding but not broken. Enraged but yet my hands remained open and I took responsibility and I opened my heart.
Today I felt tears on my cheek as I watched yet another clip of tom coburn saying no to helping the new vets. Tears when I heard that maybe today, now that he is gone at last, the bill will pass. Four vets have killed themselves as I write this and wait for the server to post it. At least one will take himself out as you read this.
But, anyway, how about that Patriot’s game? That was great, hey?
William Frederic Posey
RA 11710033
United Staes Army (discharged)
