CNN iReport

Report this Baby Killer, me, to Homeland Security!

Topics:

1 How do you tell the military that you feel like killing someone in retaliation for risking your life, your moral sense of being, and mental health, by ordering you off to a meaningless, senseless, war zone, while the rest of the nation takes no risks whatsoever

(without using a fragmentation grenade)? L

2 NATIOAL APOLOGY TO VIETNAM VETERANS (similar to the Australian government’s apology)

PS      To Specialist Marc Hall, now in prison for sending a rap song, to the Pentagon, expressing your angry feelings about how the government is using you in this current war. I say, “KEEP YOUR HEAD UP HIGH.” It takes more courage to stand out from the group, as you did, and tell the bullies in the government off, as it does for the rest of your unit to go overseas and get their medals. Sometimes, each of us has to do courageous acts which others do not appreciate.

     I have met a number of war veterans who got bad conduct discharges after coming home, angry, from a tour of duty. One guy, living up here in Maine, enlisted in the US Army in 1943 under his Uncle’s name, and then served in the Korean War under his own name, eventually punching a West Point Graduate after the newly minted Lieutenant has slapped him, in the 1954, peacetime Army. He lived up here in a cabin, with only an old soldier’s pension, anyone might get, even if they just served chow at Fort Dix. The military is a baby killing machine, and there is nothing kind about it, or the people who command it.

     The goal of our military leaders is to drop firebombs on babies in Tokyo and Hamburg, nuclear weapons on Hiroshima, and fire artillery in to villages, or shoot people who may be civilians. If you are not with the program, then you have DONE EVERYONE A FAVOR BY EXPRESSING YOUR FEELINGS IN AN HONEST MANNER, rather than keeping them hidden until they explode, as they did with Major Hassan and the soldier at Camp Liberty in Iraq who, committed fratricide last year. Thanks for your rap song, because many people feel as you do, and you did us all a favor by making your anger public!

     In my draftee motivated, US Army, in Vietnam, where many enlisted to avoid the infantry, as I did, I think we had many hundreds of unsolved fratricides, as nobody could prove who used the grenade, or shot their officer in the back of the head, as morale deteriorated as the war progressed.

     As a past member of the NAACP, I am very glad that Obama was elected, but with his background at Harvard, and the care he got from his Caucasian family, he is PROBABLY MORE WHITE THAN I AM.

     If you study the videos and writings of Martin Luther King, you would find that he would agree with you in your assessment of the current wars, unlike WW II, fought by a small percentage of our country, while the rest of our nation is not involved in the war.

From:  Roger Stavitz

RogerNamVet@aol.com

To:  Chaplain Phillip Goodman

Coatesville VAMC

1400 Black Horse Hill Road

Coatesville, PA 19320

cc:

Director of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC

VA C.O.B. Clinic, Lincoln, Maine

President Barack Obama, Washington DC

Congressman Mike Michaud, Washington, DC

Army Specialist Marc Hall c/o

     You told me about a project for a NATIONAL APOLOGY TO VIETNAM VETS (similar to the Australian model) that members of your 12 step group were working on, but I have NO CONTACT with any of them, and do not belong to any of their veteran’s chapters, have not spoken with them in years, or even sent them e mail, and you were telling me, a veteran, that the VA refuses to give psychiatric care to, about some project they are working on, which obviously stems from some sense of anger and loss that many veterans you treat have expressed? Why was Chaplain Phil Goodman calling me?

     You told me that I write well. So I wrote some stuff about your NATIONAL APOLOGY, and sent it out to Vet Centers in Maine, where I doubt they would even appreciate it, as it seems that most Vietnam Vets in Maine are still angry with, “niggers,” or other groups they hate, and not inclined to support some NATIONAL APOLOGY. I’d say that most of the Maine Vietnam Veterans were the types of Caucasian, racist soldiers, starting the race riots I was caught in.

     My anger towards the USA and the military has NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU, Phil, or the kind, courteous treatment you gave me. It started long before you.

     At age 19, I had a letter from the doctor, in 1969, about my recent knee operation, but I bounced up and down on my knee to show it worked fine, which gave me a 1A draft status. After the draft physical, I was informed that I may lose a leg to a mine, so I signed up for SUPPLY for three years in the US Army, not realizing that it would not be like a civilian job, and that I’d be expected to try to kill people I was not even angry with.

      Of course, we know this is NOT JUST ME, but happened to many naïve, young men in my age group. Then, I ignored the advice of my family, friends, and fellow veterans, and signed up for a second tour of duty in Vietnam.

     As I remember, you signed up to be an officer in 1967, against the advice of your family and friends, but then changed your mind within a few weeks, and were allowed out of your military contract as an officer.

     You’ll notice that I did not go to a rabbinical school, never had a bar mitzvah, and was not opposed to serving in an Army, as I had seen on John Wayne movies (both parents being WW II veterans).

I guess I thought it was my duty, and I did not want to disappoint the community I lived in, and there was no question of the military letting me go without a shameful period of time in prison.

      I tried to kill people in Vietnam, rather unsuccessfully, and went back for a second tour, so you can see that my service and background were completely different from yours, and I would say that is true of everyone in the USA. No two people have the same lives.

     Sometime during my first tour, I started to feel that I had taken the coward’s way out, and that it would have been more brave and honest of me to do the five years in prison for refusing the draft, rather than being a soldier. Somewhere along the line, I started having fantasies (no actual plans) of setting myself on fire on the Congressional Capitol steps.

     When the US government wants to send some more angry vets to a concentration camp, I VOLUNTEER. I am holding my hand up, asking to go first, and my SSN# can be stamped on my arm

(three weeks in to my basic training, we were told to ignore the RA# stenciled on our duffel bags, and use our SSN #).

     I’ve only been in jail for a month, total, for trespassing, but owe the government another 4 years and 11 months for refusing to go along with the draft, something many of us were too afraid to do, being concerned with pleasing our families and trying to have a normal, legal life, outside of prison.

     IT WOULD BE JUST FINE WITH ME IF THE HOMELAND SECURITY WANTED TO SEND ME THERE, and I don’t care if they stop around to visit me. I DON’T FUCKING HIDE, and am used to being visible, all alone, on a guard tower, along a perimeter fence, 25 feet up in the air, and AM NOT A FUCKING PUSSY! I may have a kind and gentle nature, and I may have a, “gay, feminine affect,” but I am a SEXUALLY STRAIGHT MOTHERFUCKER, AND AM STILL WILLING TO THREATEN TO KILL ANYONE, OR GIVE UP MY LIFE, SHOULD ANYONE QUESTION THAT IN ANY WAY!

     In 1981, I submitted a VA pension form which said, “I STILL WANT TO KILL A LIFER!” A month later, I wrote a letter to Secretary of State, Al Haig, on a VA claim form, and wrote, “FUCK YOU, MOTHERFUCKER! YOU’RE NEXT!”, along with some other prose.

     I had agents of the Department of State visit me at the VET CENTER in 1981, in Philadelphia, where I cried and said I didn’t plan on hurting anyone. I eventually quit treatment, went out to be homeless in the woods, and put myself in jail for trespassing, rather than go to a VA hospital.

     I AM QUITE USED TO BEING ON THE OUTS WITH THE VA, and have NEVER BEEN HOSPITALIZED IN A PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL, and only used medication as an personal aide to my life, to deal with depression and sadness after being depressed and unable to deal with employment after my two tours in Nam.

     I DO NOT NEED MEDICATION TO KEEP ME SANE, OR KEEP ME OUT OF THE HOSPITAL

In fact, I may be an anomaly, as a Nam Vet who actually likes medication, and avoids excessive alcohol and pot (because it is illegal, and not as good as Prozac and Buspar).

Perhaps that comes from my Jewish father?

     After several years up here in my house along the Canadian border, where there is inadequate psychiatric treatment, and veterans are encouraged to find a private psychiatrist, which usually means someone who has lost their license to practice in another state, and has run away to rural Maine where there is a dearth of medical personnel, I complained about the situation to the VA in large postcards, and the Director of Mental Health for the VA in Maine, Dr. Jon McMath, told me I had embarrassed him in front of his boss, while talking to me on a Telemental Health TV apparatus.

    I had pressured his boss to use the Telemental Health TV, rather than make me drive 350 round trip miles, every six weeks, to talk to him, to get the same medication I have been taking for over 15 years (Prozac and Buspar), and I guess I may have endangered the $$$ bonus McMath got for a good performance review? At the time, they paid me $21 in gasoline costs for my 350 mile, 8 hour journey, every other month.

     For many years, there had been this tension between me and The Director, Dr. McMath, and most of it came from his personal view of his own military service, in comparison to mine, and those of his peer group of officers. If you remember, a previous Director of the VA, a Vietnam Vet, had ordered that me and 70,000 other vets, given our 100% PTSD awards since 1999,, be reviewed, in an attempt to save money. Congress, assailed by angry veterans, later reversed this, but the argument between me and the Director of Mental Health for the VA in Maine had already begun.

     I’m sure some of this is reflected in the anger of your group members who want a NATIONAL APOLOGY, and some of it is reflected in a US Army Retiree, who I met at the Togus VAMC travel pay department last month, angry that they were trying to save travel money on him by forcing him to visit the monthly heart clinic at his C.O.B.C, instead of his usual heart doctor at the VAMC at Togus.

     I GUESS MANY OF US VIETNAM VETS HAVE ANGER ISSUES ABOUT OUR TREATMENT, AFTER WATCHING US TAKE THE RISKS, WHILE MOST OF OUR CIVILIAN PEERS AVOIDED IT, AND THE WOMEN GOT THEIR EQUAL RIGHTS, WITHOUT HAVING TO BE SUBJECT TO THE DRAFT.

     I met an Air Force First Sergeant, in treatment at the Bangor Vet Center, who served in Thailand (flew over Nam once) and Dessert Storm, who retired with PTSD, because he felt like killing his commanding officer, a Major. I pointed out that he was a LIFER WHO WANTED TO KILL A LIFER, using humor to show that my angry feelings, as a enlisted conscript, were similar to his, a career Air Force NCO.

     As far as the inadequate psychiatric treatment by the VA in Maine, I take partial responsibility for my poor mental health. It is my custom to live alone, and you’ll notice I cut family/friendship ties in order to serve a second tour in an unhappy combat zone with poor morale in 71/72. In the same manner, I just happily wandered away from the good civilian friendships I had, the EXCELLENT VETERAN FRIENDS, and the GREAT MENTAL HEALTH CARE AT THE VAMC IN PHILADELPHIA, PA, in search of some ignorant dream I had concocted the summer after getting out of the Army in 1972.

     MUCH OF THE POOR MENTAL HEALTH I NOW SUFFER COMES FROM BUYING A HOUSE FOR MY MANY PETS, UP HERE IN AN ISOLATED REDNECK HAMLET, WHERE OUTSIDERS, PARTICULARLY ANGRY, LIBERAL OUTSIDERS, AND NOT APPRECIATED.

     IT IS NOT THE FAULT OF THE VA IN MAINE THAT MY MENTAL HEALTH IS POOR, as I am not like the rural Maine veterans I have met, who have family up here, have SHAME issues about their mental health status with the VA in regards to how the community views them, and who have their families up here, with them.

     ALTHOUGH, THERE ARE MANY ISOLATED VIETNAM VETS UP HERE, MOVED TO MAINE, to be away from society, most of who use pot and alcohol for medication, and some of whom act out their anger through illegal acts (shooting off firearms or driving while intoxicated), and are currently serving time in Maine prisons.

     I did tell the Director of Mental Health in Maine, over the television set, “I’LL KILL WHO I WANT TO,” when he was demeaning me and suggesting that I had problems before I went to Vietnam, and was merely a liar, or an inadequate soldier, and I AM GLAD THAT I DID SO. That was in August of 2007. He wouldn’t have smirked and scoffed at me like that in person (nobody would act that way), but over a television connection, he apparently felt safe to humiliate me that like.

     Dr. Jonathan McMath shook his head like a scared horse on the television screen, and immediately stopped smirking and scoffing at me. But the next month, he told me he was going to, “BAN ME FROM VA MENTAL HEATLH, at least in the State of Maine.” I wrote to my congressman, and for the last two years, the General Practitioner at the VA C.O.B. Clinic in Lincoln, ME, has prescribed my Prozac and Buspar (which I can live without if they stop prescribing it).

     Sometimes, I remind myself of one of my cats, who was in her carrier, about to go to the veterinarian for her monthly shot to keep her alive, and she was meowing. Here I am, isolated in northern Maine, on a property I bought, getting GOOD MEDICAL TREATMENT, and the medication I desire, and I’M MEOWING! WHY?

     I guess you can give a damaged young man, as an older veteran, money and good health care, BUT YOU, THE SOCIETY, CAN’T REALLY REMOVE THE PAIN. Or, maybe it is partly the fault of the society, who sends young men off to war for selfish reasons, while most of the rest of the nation ignores the war and pays no personal sacrifice for it?

     In 1982, a NJ State vet claims officer, a retired First Sergeant, who had liberated a concentration camp in WW II, told me that he thought that the Vietnam Veteran’s problems were twofold. One was Vietnam Vets who didn’t trust the VA or the government. The second part, in his opinion, is a VA that didn’t want to recognize the psychiatric pain and problems associated with serving in a war, which like I said, ONLY A SMALL PERCENTAGE OF THE NATION PAID ANY PERSONAL SACRIFICE TO WAGE? That was his opinion, and it’s probably still true today, in our current wars in the Middle East (which I am opposed to, which must be obvious by now).

     So here I am, an older, isolated man of 60 years, with no loved ones, other than some pets he loves, and hardly anybody to talk to, WHO NEEDS TO SEND OUT LETTERS, much like the alcoholic needs to drink? Why? Who knows? Why does the General Officer need to kill people, and there you will find the reason I need to write letters. Have a great day. Rog.

     FUCK THE ARMY! FUCK THE

GREEN MACHINE!FUCK THE USA for hurting my soul when I was 19 years of age!

PS     Why are you, an elderly Jewish chaplain, worried about, “Homeland Security being all over me?” Are you afraid they’ll get your name, and cut back on your portion of gruel at the nursing home you will soon inhabit at the age of 69? You’re already on their 600,000 Plus Enemies list, because you protested around the Maine State House in 1969. I’ll bet you were on Nixon’s Enemies List in the 70s!

     The former nominee for Homeland Security, Bernie Kerik, is on his way to prison for fraud! His boss, Mr. Obama, who is half Caucasian, like I’m half Caucasian, is a wanna’ be millionaire President like Bill Clinton, pursuing an empty, endless war In Afghanistan, and

my nickname for President Obama is Richard Millhouse Nixon REDUX! J

You never know! This time, perhaps they’ll give you, a Jewish Rabbi/Chaplain, with European, Ashkenazi roots, an extra portion of gruel for helping Vietnam Vets. J

I forgive you for telling me that there would never be another long, protracted war like Vietnam, and for giving me your personal OK to move to Maine, as you had done, many years before. Nobody can foresee the future, nobody has any guarantees in life, and like Donald Rumsfeld, you hoped everything would work out for the best. L And, as usual, I would like to thank the Lincoln COB Clinic, and the people at the VAMC in Togus, Maine, for giving me some very good medical care, the kind I got at the VAMC in Philadelphia!

PS Here is something I wrote to retired Lt. Colonel Robert Whelan at the University of Maine, who recently taught us, at Maine Senior College, a class on writer Tobias Wolff’s book called, IN PHAROAH’S ARMY; Memories of the Lost War. In this blurb from my e mail, I was showing Colonel Bob, a special forces Vietnam Veteran and teacher at West Point, how the Selective Service board had come to pick me, for my good fighting skills, so I could go over to Vietnam and kill people effectively. L J

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But I was not brought up to hit other people. At age 5, a kid punched me in the nose, and I didn't know what else to do but to stop by his Mom's house on the way home to get some aid for my bleeding nose. NEVER OCCURRED TO ME TO HIT HIM BACK....LOL

At age 7, my friend pushed my boat under the water, and I cried and went home. IT NEVER OCCURRED TO ME TO HIT HIM....LOL

When I moved to a suburban Levittown, PA, some small Jewish kid threatened to box me. I guess I felt silly, chasing this smaller, Jewish kid around, as after challenging me to a match, it turned out he was afraid of me. Afterwards, another Jew wanted to box me because he thought I did so good....LOL…but I just felt stupid, and declined....LOL

When you let American Jews beat you, then you're really a bad fighter...LOL (my Dad was a Jew, so there's some humor there, as many American Jews are brought up in a religious culture that does not encourage fighting).

In high school, a bully threatened to fight me, but I never wanted to. I just really had no desire to fight or hurt others. I didn’t understand why they hated me, and my father actually discouraged discussion of his childhood faith, so kids thought I was a Jew, wanted to hit me for it, but I didn’t even know what a Kike was, or why they hated me. I DON'T THINK I WAS PRIME MEAT FOR THE INDUSTRIAL MILITARY COMPLEX....LOL