A Veteran's plea for HELP!

This is a plea for help. I am down and out!

I have tried for the past 30 years to find some stability and meaning in this life. I served four years in the military during the Vietnam period where I was contaminated with heavy metals and suffered hearing loss that is now worsening because I cannot afford a hearing aid, I also suffered from incredible mood swings taking all my effort to control. I am now unable to pay my way in the most humble abode. I just went on with my life after this. That’s how it works. You come back and just get back into the world alongside of everybody else. The heavy metals wouldn’t be diagnosed for some time, about 6 years ago, when I started having medical complications. But I always had an inordinate amount of trouble concentrating. I guess that forced me to work harder. I got a bachelors degree and did some graduate work, then got utterly disgusted with the politics of academia and the kind of riff-raff who got through the system. One undergraduate class I was in over half the students were caught cheating. Those cheaters that didn’t get caught and got A’s, I remembered myself thinking, got a higher GPA than me and were therefore more qualified—“better students”. I think I met one person in two years of graduate school that wasn't a self-seeking shyster. I now wish I had learned to cheat, or gotten a theological degree, or am I being redundant? I guess its better than being homeless.

I have never asked for any charity. A few years ago I was denied a claim I filed with the VA. The VA just denied that the metals, one of which could only have come from where I worked in the military. The hearing loss was from jet engine noise was also denied. I got nothing.

I went bankrupt trying to get the heavy metals cleaned out with chelation therapy and I need to continue this treatment. I live in a $500.00/month converted garage which I’ve lived in for the past 13+ years. I’ve been doing home improvement type stuff for years. I have worked, and worked and worked to try to like it all, but I end up pissing my energy away thinking and writing about democracy’s epitaph. A university professor who read some of my stuff said it was excellent: “Nobody writes like that anymore”. Now, if I am evicted and on the streets, I will have to give up the only thing worth living for. I use library computers after my computer went out awhile back and I cannot afford Internet service.

A couple a days after Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) started I spoke (more like cried) in public about the insanity of it all. I knew it was going to be a disaster. I can barely watch the shit coming down on this country of fools, complete and utter asshead fools.

I’ve been hassled by the US Gestapo/CIA. I’ve been surveiled even before 9/11. One of them screwed up and called me by name before I told him my name. I know other people who have been fucked with all the way back to COINTELPRO. Wanting to live a little longer I backed off of looking more deeply into the crimes of the Bush Dynasty. So much of what I found has been wiped off of the Internet.

I have no family, extended or otherwise. My family of origin are dysfunctional/alchoholic Right Wing assholes. Some of my relatives extremely sick people. I take solace in reading : “Books remind us that we are not alone”. Needless to say I never had my own family, though, in a homey sort of way would have like watching some kids playing on the floor. There was just something so fucking wrong with this world. It came home to me in glaring illustration when I read, actually re-read Orwell’s 1984 back in the Reagan era. This is an excerpt from a book I was (am?) writing.

Reagan’s Spinal Tap

…. Something kept drawing me back to what I had read in “1984”. This was when Winston Smith, the main character who worked in the “Ministry of Truth”, heard what he hoped was a street riot in defiance of Big Brother. “Finally”, Winston thought, the “proles” are fighting back. As he approached the scene in the streets he could only hear the commotion. The “proles” who up until then were docile, conforming, and willing to turn in a loved one who violated any of the numerous protocols enforced by Big Brother, thinking being the chief violation, now sounded like they had had enough and were willing to take to the streets…..But as Winston turned the corner and saw what had caused the riot his heart sank. People were fighting over who would get what from the government distribution of cooking utensils. Yanking and pulling they screamed at each other, often exchanging blows with pots and pans they were fighting over.
“Why”, Winston asked himself, never speaking out in public for fear of exposure, “Why do these people only care about the unimportant things. In a paroxysm of fury he wondered why “football, beer and gambling” were all that people seemed to care about while the the police state they were enslaved in by Big Brother made their lives a living hell? The “Big Lie” unnoticed.



The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of the nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell a big one.
Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf, vol. 1, ch. 3 (1925))




Then I recalled the incident in the real world with the Cabbage Patch dolls. This happened when shoppers at a toy store rioted because there was a shortage of cutsy little Cabbage Patch dolls. It was then that I realized that we were worse off than “1984”: the proles were fighting over a scarce commodity that was useful and, as idiotic as it seemed, it was not nearly as idiotic as the Cabbage Patch Doll riots, a fight over a children’s toy. Mindless greed. Winston Smith would have been more alarmed by what I was witnessing in the real 1984: an environment supposedly inundated with information and democratic ideals fighting over a kids doll. These same idiots blithley accept Reaganism and the media shills who pumped it.

"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my
contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the
spinal cord would fully suffice."
-- Albert Einstein


"All that was required of them was a
primitive patriotism which could be
appealed to whenever it was
necessary”—George Orwell


No such riots came from Iran-Contra, or the Savings and Loan scandal, or any of the other numerous scandals of that era. You never heard people make it a part of their everyday conversation. The big lies passed with barely a grumble, while the “unimportant” indeed trivial, caused people to come to blows. Every so often we would have a “Sports riot” where fans attacked each other and vandalized over the outcome of there sporting event. “football, drinking and gambling”. Then the sudden rise of gambling casino’. Now they are mainstream. Sports had replaced social discourse in the “Neo-proles” daily life as jellybeans had replaced serious discussion in Reagan's politics. Reagan kept a jar of jellybeans on his desk to remind those who think that thinking is not wanted here. On another level I wondered why soap operas never faded out of interest? And how the news turned to “infotainment” where we are greeted with: “glad could join us tonight”…….”see you tomorrow night”. Who is joining whom? Who is seeing whom? "Can they really see us Daddy?" On a PBS show about aircraft carriers they invite the viewers to “experience” being on an one. Newspeak? Was this specie truly functioning at an arrested level, unable to get past the spinal chord idiocy of soap opera?




What I am asking for is help (2,5 or ten dollars) to pay for my chelation therapy, so I can get back on my feet again. A nurse who saw my charts in the first chelations I did said she had never seen such high levels of heavy metals.
When I admitted my claim to the VA they just said it wasn’t the military’s fault, either the heavy metals or the hearing loss. Of course if I had a lawyer to help I may have gotten better results. Now I’m struggling to keep myself in a hovel with a truck ready for the transmission to go out. Heating bills, phone bills now going unpaid. No health or auto insurance.

What motivates me to stay with it is what I have found in my research. I want to get this into a published work. If you reply with a SASE I will send you a copy of a piece I wrote called “If Abe Lincoln had lived”; in it Abe takes on Monopoly Capitalists.

Please reply to
PO Box 15606
Seattle, WA 98101

I want to remain anonymous for now.

Also I would appreciate any suggestions you have for my predicament.

Happy Holidays,
Happydreams

They suck bad, and they usually turn you down, but it's worth a shot. Sometimes you get approved in the first go 'round and don't get denied at all.

would be a person to ask about it since he's just gone through it.

figure out how to get some sort of assitance in some way. There must be something that can be done to help you, even if only with the hearing aids.

you have + medical records, and go to your local proactive disabled american veteran's (dav) office and refile with the va. it will be a long, drawn-out endeavor, but you should certainly qualify for a ptsd rating if you were in combat in vietnam and can prove a "stressor." if you are a type ii diabetic the va no accepts a link between diabetes and agent orange exposure (and 8-9 other diseases). write down names of people you were in the military with and throw nothing away. bring papers from your previous attempts with the va. you cannot do this yourself. get a dav service officer to walk you through the process. they will file for you. appeal everything. if you have more ?? answer this post and i will share more info with you.

even hear my claim. The chelation is expensive. I need about 6,000 to get it done right. I'll look into the disabled vet route. Time is running out fast on keeping my apartment.
Thanks

that you are going to sit outside their office with a sign until they cut the red tape. you can do this and it will help you. I will see what I can send, honey. HUGS!

find an attorney who handles disability cases on a contingency basis. You would pay him/her nothing unless and until you received your money. I would try to find an attorney who does this type of thing, if you can.

Best of luck.

if you can get Medicare or Medicaid, depending on your age and/or income?

n/t

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