AMERICA

AMERICA
ONE NATION UNDER GOD!

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

last call


DAVID EMANUEL HICKMAN

The last US military member killed in the Iraq War
A cutup who liked to joke around with friends. A physical fitness fanatic who half-kiddingly called himself "Zeus" because he had a body that would make the gods jealous. A ferocious outside linebacker at Northeast Guilford High School who was the linchpin of a defense so complicated they had to scrap it after he graduated because no other teenager could figure it out.

Hickman was these things and more, a whole life scarcely glimpsed in the terse language of a Defense Department news release last month. Three paragraphs said Hickman died in Baghdad on Nov. 14, "of injuries suffered after encountering an improvised explosive device."

He was more, too, than the man who bears the symbolic freight of being the last member of the U.S. military to die in a war launched in the political shadow of 9/11, which brought thousands of his fellow citizens out into the streets to oppose and support it. Eventually, the war largely faded from the public's thoughts.


"There's a lot of people, in my family included, they don't know what's going on in this world," said Wes Needham, who coached linebackers at Northeast when David was a student. "They're oblivious to it. I just sit and think about it, the courage that it takes to do what they do, especially when they're all David's age."
And they were mostly young. According to an Associated Press analysis of casualty data, the average age of Americans who died in Iraq was 26. Nearly 1,300 were 22 or younger, but middle-aged people fought and died as well: some 511 were older than 35.

"I've trained a lot of kids. They go to college and you kind of lose track of them and forget them," said Mike King of Greensboro Black Belt Academy, where Hickman trained in taekwondo for about eight years. "He was never like that. That smile and that laugh immediately come to mind."

GOD REST YOU
DAVID EMANUEL HICKMAN
and
GOD GRANT PEACE TO YOUR FAMILY

==========><==========
ON A MORE OUTRAGED NOTE
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SWAT Team Shooting of Marine Vet Causes Outrage


TUCSON, Ariz. -- Jose Guerena Ortiz was sleeping after an exhausting 12-hour night shift at a copper mine. His wife, Vanessa, had begun breakfast. Their 4-year-old son, Joel, asked to watch cartoons.
An ordinary morning was unfolding in the middle-class Tucson neighborhood -- until an armored vehicle pulled into the family's driveway and men wearing heavy body armor and helmets climbed out, weapons ready.

They were a sheriff's department SWAT team who had come to execute a search warrant. But Vanessa Guerena insisted she had no idea, when she heard a "boom" and saw a dark-suited man pass by a window, that it was police outside her home. She shook her husband awake and told him someone was firing a gun outside.

A U.S. Marine veteran of the Iraq war, he was only trying to defend his family, she said, when he grabbed his own gun -- an AR-15 assault rifle.
What happened next was captured on video after a member of the SWAT team activated a helmet-mounted camera.

 


The officers -- four of whom carried .40-caliber handguns while another had an AR-15 -- moved to the door, briefly sounding a siren, then shouting "Police!" in English and Spanish. With a thrust of a battering ram, they broke the door open. Eight seconds passed before they opened fire into the house.
And 10 seconds later, Guerena lay dying in a hallway 20 feet from the front door. The SWAT team fired 71 rounds, riddling his body 22 times, while his wife and child cowered in a closet.

HOW'S THAT FOR MARKSMANSHIP?
 71 ROUNDS AT A MAN FROM 20 FEET AWAY AND ONLY 22 HITS ON TARGET!

"Hurry up, he's bleeding," Vanessa Guerena pleaded with a 911 operator. "I don't know why they shoot him. They open the door and shoot him. Please get me an ambulance."
When she emerged from the home minutes later, officers hustled her to a police van, even as she cried that her husband was unresponsive and bleeding, and that her young son was still inside. She begged them to get Joel out of the house before he saw his father in a puddle of blood on the floor.
But soon afterward, the boy appeared in the front doorway in Spider-Man pajamas, crying.

 The Pima County Sheriff's Department said its SWAT team was at the home because Guerena was suspected of being involved in a drug-trafficking organization and that the shooting happened because he arrived at the door brandishing a gun. The county prosecutor's office says the shooting was  

justified.


IS IT JUSTIFIED TO KICK IN THE DOOR 
AND START SHOOTING WILLY NILLY INTO AN OCCUPIED HOME?

But six months after the May 5 police gunfire shattered a peaceful morning and a family's life, investigators have made no arrests in the case that led to the raid. Outraged friends, co-workers and fellow Marines have called the shooting an injustice and demanded further investigation. A family lawyer has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the sheriff's office. And amid the outcry in online forums and social media outlets, the sheriff's 54-second video, which found its way to YouTube, has drawn more than 275,000 views.
The many questions swirling around the incident all boil down to one, repeated by Vanessa Guerena, as quoted in the 1,000-page police report on the case:

"Why, why, why was he killed?"






 

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

TRANSITIONS

Some very big things have been going on in my life lately all of them good. I'm making measurable gains in my strength and stamina in both occupational and physical therapy. The approximately 13 months I have been going to the VA for therapy sessions have resulted in going from sitting in my wheelchair for about an hour a day, was unable to hold my head up straight most of that time with very limited range of motion in my arms and legs;  to spending an average of 10 to 12 hours a day the same wheelchair with little or no fatigue. I've completed countless hours of physical exercise and I'm to the point where the home health care system at the local VA has decided to promote me out of the home healthcare program!

this is a good thing!

along with physical and occupational therapies, I'm in psychological therapy. I've written about that a couple of times so this shouldn't be a surprise. This posting is directly attributed to that psychological therapy. Because of my transition, I'm no longer going to be able to see the psychologists I have been seeing in the home health care program. And because I'm obviously still nuttier than a Christmas fruitcake she recommended I attend therapy sessions in the hospital at the mood clinic. I have an appointment on 19 December for evaluation there. They think they are evaluating me, but I assure you I am doing as much evaluating as they will. And in light of this transition Dr. Steiner has asked me to write a little essay about what it is I hope to accomplish in sessions at the clinic.

1. I'm still having a hard time with my mental self-image.
A little background:
in grammar school I was one of the smaller kids in the class. Boys my own age were at least half a head taller than me, and although I ate like a horse I was skinny as a rail. But I had a built-in mean streak and an extremely quick wit that prevented me from being bullied in class. I attended the only Catholic school in my hometown and as such I was required to wear black trousers, a dress white shirt and a necktie everyday. None of the other families near me attended that school I was the only one going home every afternoon dressed in something other than jeans and T-shirt. They may as well have painted a bull's-eye on me. I averaged one flight a week and sometimes more, from the first grade all the way through the sixth grade.

Then in the summer before 7th grade a miracle took place. The first time I walked through the doors of Jacksonville junior high school in September of that year I was 6 feet tall, broad shouldered and looking for a little payback. Ansd since I was no longer in the Catholic school I wasn't required to wear a shirt and tie every day and fighting back without the fear of being punished for having my school clothes ruined gave a free reign to the anger I had from those grade shool days.

But I still had a mental image of myself as a small skinny kid. A physical confrontation with a bully, where I was able to intimidate him just by my size alone, helped me to reform a more positive mental image of myself. And as I grew older, I grew larger and my mental image grew with it, so that before this cancer struck I was physically and mentally 6'4" tall 225 pounds.

Today I'm still 6'4" tall on my right side and approximately 5'9" tall on my left side. But from my vantage point in my wheelchair I'm probably right around 4'5" tall and I literally have a belt buckle view of the world around me. 
I have not come to grips with this physical situation and I guess my biggest problem is I'm still carrying a mental image of 6'4" tall man. This problem becomes more complex when I continue to hang onto the notion that all I need is a prosthetic leg and a little more time to be that 6'4" man again.

2. I want to work on acquiring skills that will help me cope with the situation if I am unable to accomplish my goal of walking again.

3. I want to discover who I am now on the inside, regardless of success in number one above. The things I have gone through in this ordeal have made significant changes in me. I want to recognize, address and embrace those changes.

4. I need help in acquiring new skills of communication with people around me. I'm still unsure what is considered proper etiquette or protocol when people question me about my status. This isn't new. I've always been the kind of person who wonders aloud when people say things like "nice to meet you" 
to which I usually reply "really why is that?"
but now there's a whole new set of circumstances and opportunities for people to say things to me that elicit a sardonic response. And while sometimes such a response is mandatory for my well-being, there are other times, like when a child asks what happened to you? It is quite inappropriate! 

5. I want to accomplish all of the above without being institutionalized…


Merry Christmas

Sunday, December 4, 2011

MERRY CHRISTMAS

it's that time of year again. People are decorating their houses. Shoppers are in the malls searching for the perfect gift. Families  are making travel arrangements to go back home for a visit. Menus are being planned for the occasion. Stockings are being stuffed and children have eyes widened in great wonder in anticipation of a visit from Santa Claus.

not much exists of the Christmases I remember as a child. It's all become a commercial mess, where people when asked "What's the true meaning of Christmas?" They almost always respond it's about family and giving, and remembering our loved ones, and caring for the poor and needy, or any number of things that have absolutely nothing to do with the religious nature of the holiday. 
We used to attend midnight mass at the Catholic Church in my hometown. We used to say Merry Christmas to everyone we met. For reasons beyond the scope of this discussion around age 12 I stepped away from all of that. I spent the next 20 years of my life in complete rebellion to all the things involving Christianity and Christmas.

but at no time in my life did I ever hold the belief that's reflected in this picture:


undojesus.org

So while you may be offended by me using the term

MERRY CHRISTMAS

You're nowhere nearly as offended as I am by the sentiment espoused by this jackass.

ps, Not happy holidays. good kwanza, season's greetings or any other no religious themed salutations will be uttered by me. 

just a plain, simple, direct and to the politically incorrect point,

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

PHASE 2

last week I began a new phase in my recovery. I call this new phase;
FREEDOM
with the assistance of some remarkable people at San Diego veterans medical Center, I have been making great strides recovering my strength and abilities. But until recently all of my excursions outside of my house  have been limited to my local neighborhood in my wheelchair, and medical transportation rides to and from the hospital.
And then this happened:

a brand-new 2010 Honda Odyssey.

After a little industrial magic by the good folks at

Better Life Mobility Center, it began to look like this:





on Friday, 11 November 2011 but my first trip in the Odyssey., an appropriately named vehicle because I am on an odyssey or epic journey and this vehicle is propelling me to my future, to visit a local Honda dealership where I was involved in purchasing a new vehicle for my daughter. I know most people would rather have their teeth pulled than go visit used-car dealership. But, considering the circumstances and the fact that I'm not most people. We purchased for her a 2010 Honda Civic Coupe, black in color with custom wheels and tires. When I first saw the car she picked, my question, to my daughter was; "are you cool enough to own a car like this?"

She Is…

Since then I've been out a couple more times. On Sunday 13 November, I went to church for the first time in five years. I used to be pretty popular there, most people are not used to black leather clad biker types being fully conversant in the gospel. We were greeted at the door by the usual cluster of appointed greeters, all very friendly and cheery and happy to see us. But no one recognized me, that was okay because I look almost nothing like  I used to.
Later that same day to take a 35 mile ride to Escondido California to visit my wife's older brother who had recently been diagnosed with a serious brain tumor. His prognosis is not good, the doctors say he's terminal. So far God hasn't weighed in on this, so we will just have to see. Remember, these are the same doctors who said I would never walk again ha ha ha ha. A few more pictures...

 That's my beautiful wife in the pilot seat


 Inspecting the gadgets

 ON THE ROAD
 Peeling outta sight
THE VIEW FROM MY WINDOW
you may be thinking to yourself, I bet that Van cost an arm and a leg. I got a really good deal it only cost me a leg. I never meant to own a minivan to me they are the epitome of un-coolness. However this particular uncoolness is only a stepping stone to getting back on my Harley Davidson. I'll post more pictures as the adventure continues. Be well be blessed and be a blessing to others,

KRIPPLEDWARRIOR…

Monday, November 7, 2011

IN A NUTSHELL

Recently I have received several e-mail messages asking the question "how did the warrior get krippled?" So rather than keep writing that e-mail going to answer that question right here today. For those of you who have been longtime followers of my blog this is a rehash for you and you may want to skip it completely. For everyone else...

In late March of 2006 I started suffering symptoms that led doctors to believe that maybe having heart trouble. Short of breath, heart racing, totally exhausted after mild exertion and general lethargy. But after a battery of EKGs in which all measurements associated with sinus rhythm were normal, the Dr. ordered a basic battery of blood tests and sent me home to await results.

on April 7, 2006 at around 1:15 in the morning, my phone rang. It was not unusual as I was on call 7/24 at work. However this was not the help desk calling it was a doctor at the emergency room at Kaiser Permanente. After confirmed he was talking to the right person, he told me I need to come to the emergency room immediately, my blood tests have returned but he did not want to discuss it on the phone. After a long night and most of the day in the emergency room admitting me to the hospital and told me that oncologists would be in to see me soon. The blood test showed that I had almost no red blood cells and all of my white blood cells were immature. This condition can be caused by leukemia or aplastic anemia. No way to tell for sure which, without administering a bone marrow biopsy.

The biopsy confirmed that I had acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The prognosis was not good the Dr. said that this type of disease has a lesson 25% survival rate at five years. But they sent my bone marrow biopsy to an expert in Los Angeles for confirmation. In the interim I received blood transfusions to revitalize my system and keep me from keeling over. This went on for about two weeks, getting transfused every other day, until the results returned. There was a new diagnosis I had a very rare subset of AML which was manifest by a chromosome transfer between T 13-15, a condition known to be caused by exposure to the chemical benzene. Until the year before my diagnosis this rare form of leukemia was 99% fatal despite bone marrow transplants. But in the interim the Communist Chinese had found that megadoses of retinoic acid would actually cause a transposition between T 13 and 15and correct the condition. I was administered the drugs in the form of 11 large capsules four times a day, I don't remember what the total dosage was. But I remember it was huge. In addition to the retinoic acid treatment the oncologists insisted on giving me traditional chemotherapy in an effort to; "kill off the cancerous leukocytes that were roaming in my body."

DAUNORUBICIN

this chemical was injected into me intravenously once every day for seven days. Hanging from the IV pole the clear plastic bag and clear plastic tubing the drug resembled orange Kool-Aid almost fluorescent in color I remember being told the chief concern was to not get the chemical on my skin as it would burn me. Somehow, having it inside my blood veins was not a comforting thought. They kept me in the hospital for another two weeks to monitor my condition but also to protect me because his chemical would suppress my immune system so drastically that a normal cold which would cause a runny nose and watery eyes for you, would most certainly kill me. I was allowed to go home for short for our visit but I was told I must wear a surgical mask, have no physical contact with anyone and I must return before 6 PM. When they finally release me to go home I was told to stay at home and not visit public places were I could catch a disease. And no hugging or kissing the family members.

on the Friday before the Fourth of July, 2006 I got him a motorcycle and rode to work for the company picnic. I was 6'4" and weighed a whopping 147 pounds. Bald as a lightbulb, in fact all my body hair fell out, I'm quite glad that no pictures of me exist from that time. I was still not clear by the doctors to return to work as a felt a second round of chemotherapy was in order. This despite the fact the bone marrow biopsy confirmed the chromosome transfer had been reversed (the retinoic acid had worked).

CYTARABINE
in August of 2006, I returned to the Outpatient Treatment Ctr., Kaiser Permanente and was hooked up to a infusion pump that I carried on my hip 7/24 for the next week returning every second day have the pump recharged with the chemicals. The doctor told me I could stay at home with this pump as long as I remain in isolation, for the reasons listed before, with the warning:

"if you get a fever above 101.6°, return emergency room immediately." The side effects of this drug were very unpleasant the rather gross, so I'll skip those details but almost one week after the infusion pump was removed by temperature was measured at 101.7°, and I was taken to the hospital.

what happened next, is from things that witnesses told me. I have no recollection as I want almost immediately into a coma. A condition that lasted the better part of a month. Kept alive by a ventilator the team of diligent experts, despite the fact that my body had all but shut down. As it turned out a common intestinal bacteria had crossed over into my bloodstream and sent me into sepsis, more commonly known as toxic shock, a condition where your blood is actually poisonous and damaging to the tissues of your body. My kidneys shut down and I was placed on dialysis. In response to the condition my body went into defense mode my blood pressure dropped to almost 0. To counter that blood pressure drop I was hooked up to huge bottles of intravenous saline water. I was given so much water that the skin on my hands and arms broke open the water poured out. I ballooned from the 147 pounds to over 350, all water weight. There were several occasions during August and September of 2006 the doctors call my family to warn them if they wanted to see me alive they need to come now. Looking back on it I often joke, "those doctors did everything they could. But, I lived anyway."

sometime in late September of 2006 I opened my eyes in response to someone asking me to. I have a vague recollection of people speaking to me during that time period when I was in a deep coma, words but not faces. So when someone tells you a comatose person can't hear you, please rest assured that they quite possibly can. I did! When I awoke the only thing I was aware of was an acute, continuous, exquisite pain in every fiber of my being from the tips of my fingers to my eyelashes everything screamed out in agony. The most intense pain relieving chemicals in the world were of no relief. It was unbearable for things to touch me anywhere. The weight of the sheets laying on me cause intense flashes of white-hot pain to shoot all over my body. For some reason, because I did not know at the time that I was paralyzed, the medical staff came in and told me on my side every two hours. I'm quite positive that the string of profanities and curses that I leveled at them in response to the pain that I was experiencing, still echoes in the halls of the hospital, lo these five years later.

As I just told you I did not understand but I was paralyzed. I knew I could not move. But I thought it was due to some form of physical restraint. And because of that I was on wood mechanically rotate and tilt to relieve pressure, it felt like sleeping aboard a ship, something I had done for 17 years of my life. So in my mind I picture myself tied down on a table top aboard some small boat. I begged visitors to please untie me. I quite distinctly remember threatening my wife with divorce once I finally got loose, because she would not untie me.

Conditions:
paralyzed from the neck down, different doctors use different terms to describe it some said quadriplegic while other said quadraparetic.

my lips and mouth were red sore and covered in scabs because of the dry air forced in and out by the ventilator.

My kidneys were functioning but my liver was barely hanging on as my blood test showed high levels of liver enzymes.

Because of the restricted blood flow caused by the zero blood pressure both of my feet were black and gangrenous.

I would drift in and out of consciousness because of the various infections I was experiencing. And for the next year I was given enough antibiotics to cure a small third world nation of all its ills.

at the end of October 2006 the hospital discharge me into the care of a nursing facility near where I lived. Not so much because I was well again. The more likely because they couldn't do anything else for me. My condition had stabilized, although temporarily, enough that it did not warrant me being on inpatient status. So I was checked into a care facility which was not covered by my insurance, was paid for by the gracious love of my mother-in-law. The day staff people were very kind loving and considerate people. But for the two months I lived there I lived in terror of the midnight staff. That story is written another part in this blog roll back and find it.
the Kaiser Permanente physician who attended me at just care facility refused to allow me access to any form of physical therapy. He told me that I was a hopeless, flaccid muscled quadriplegic who was under his care for custodial purposes only. Unable to move to use a call button doing that I had for contacting the staff was my voice. I often joke that I don't have an indoor voice, I have actually been asked to leave a bowling alley for being too loud and I wasn't even drunk! So I would holler at the top of my voice to get attention from the attending staff. The night staff would come in shut the door behind them and scold me for being noisy. Being paralyzed and unable to use the bathroom facilities I was in a diaper. The night staff would ridicule me for messing myself, like I had some other choice. There are other abuses would keep to myself. I endured them because I thought I had no other choice. Who was became known that my insurance would cover home healthcare, I immediately moved home in the hospital bed with doctors and nurses coming to visit me on a regular basis sometimes almost daily.

Benzene

The only time I had ever been exposed to benzene was in the United States Navy service. It was, and quite possibly still is, using every paint product that the Navy had. As part of preservation of the ship every sailor becomes an experienced painter. And you get the paint on your hands and body. But rather than try to scrub it off with soap, practice was to wash her hands in pain thinner which major ingredient was benzene. Benzene was also a drying agent in the paint itself, as well as the primers used before applying paint.

when friends and relatives heard about what happened to me, everyone told me to get a hold of the VA as this is a clear-cut case of line-of-duty chemical exposure. So we submitted paperwork requesting VA assistance. But immediately was shot down. The denial letter said it was because I did not indicate in my application that benzene was the cause of my actual problem. Despite the fact that they acknowledged that benzene does cause that and that it appeared as though I had been exposed. Typical bureaucratic bull shit. We were allowed one rebuttal this time we asked my primary Dr. to please write a letter in support of my request. It took three years from that point but in the end the VA grant me a 100% service connected disability.

In the 2007 2008 infections continued. I was admitted to the hospital on the verge of another, being pumped full of antibiotics and painkillers and was asked to submit to exploratory surgery of my abdomen. The surgeon was a practical man they told me quite plainly; "if once we are in there we discover something wrong with the large intestine we can either repair or remove that part. But if the problem is with the upper intestine, well quite frankly you may not survive the week. Do you give us permission to go in and fix whatever we can find?" of course I said yes!
what they found was the interior lining of my large intestine had been eaten away by the bacterial infection that started this whole thing off. And it was removed. Also sometime in 2008, the date it eludes me, I finally got well enough to undergo surgery for removal of my gangrenous feet. My left leg was amputated below the knee because the destruction of tissue had incorporated into the bones of my foot and ankle. My right foot however have miraculously healed enough that all the toes needed to be removed. Shortly thereafter I experience another setback in the form of pancreatitis in some sort of gallbladder ailment. Both of these conditions mounted new levels of pain the required me to take hallucinogenic doses of morphine six times a day and eight 500 mg doses of Vicodin every day. My medicine cabinet was quite capable of kickstarting the 60s all over again.

unable to eat I had a feeding tube inserted through my side directly into my stomach. Because of the gallbladder ailment, the doctors fear that without it will survive another surgery, I had a drain inserted into my gallbladder through my skin. Because of chemotherapy drugs have virtually destroyed my blood vessels I had long line peripheral catheters inserted in my arms for the administration of antibiotics. I remember looking up one day at the IV tree and counting six different concoctions being pumped into me. My immune system had been so totally suppressed by the chemotherapy that it took that many drugs to keep me from succumbing to the normal bacteria that inhabit my body.

While Kaiser Permanente spent probably millions of dollars keeping me alive, that was their sole means of determining success. But I was still alive and sucking wind. It doesn't mean he didn't care. The individual doctors and nurses that I dealt with in the home care system Kaiser Permanente some of the most caring loving considerate and compassionate people I've ever met in my life. But that healthcare organization is not equipped to deal with the level of destruction that my body had suffered. If I had to do it over again, the only change I would make would be to decline the second round of chemotherapy. When I waffled on the issue back in 2006 the Dr. assured me it was quite possible I would relapse and die without it. Today I know there are things much worse than death. They're going to have to burn the woods and sift the ashes to find me and make me do chemotherapy again.

THE VA
When most people think of the VA they're talking about the administration portion. Like all bureaucracies is full of things that can be made more efficient. There is another part of the VA, the hospital system while you may find some people who want to complain about it, I am not one of them I have had nothing but top notch A-1 care at the San Diego VA regional medical center. From the very first day when the VA took over my home healthcare my life has begun a path back in the direction of living. My home healthcare Dr. on her very first visit to: my hand at my bedside and said "are you about ready to get back into life?" 
My answer was a resounding "yes"

since that time showing over a year ago my progress has been miraculous, literally. Why am still not able to walk yet, there have been some very big changes in my life. More about that later.
as I stated the beginning of this all I wanted to was provide a place where people could come and get the answer to the question; how did you get crippled?
And now you know!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Occupy Wall Street

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He mentions Keynesian economics, here is the definition:

OPINIONS?

Monday, October 10, 2011

THINK PINK

OCTOBER
IS

BREAST CANCER
AWARENESS
MONTH


BE
A
SUPERHERO
GET
A
MAMOGRAM

EVEN THE GUYS AT HARLEY DAVIDSON
ARE
IN THE PINK



DON'T BE LIKE THIS GUY

GET 'EM CHECKED



A MESSAGE OF LOVE AND ENCOURAGEMENT
FROM ME
TO
YOU.

DID YOU SEE THE SUNRISE?



WELL I DID
AND IT

LOOKED LIKE THIS












THANK YOU GOD, FOR THE WONDERFUL GIFT OF SIGHT AND THIS GREAT PLACE IN WHICH TO USE IT...



GET UP EARLY AND SEE WHAT THE WORLD LOOKS LIKE AS A FRESH NEW DAY BLOOMS.


THEY TOLD ME AT THE VA, "YOU HAVE TO BEGIN DRUG TESTING."

I SAID:

"OK. WHAT DRUUGS DO YOU WANT TESTED?"

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

LIVING IN THE PAST

RECENTLY MY PSYCHOLOGIST SUGGESTED
I MIGHT BE LIVING IN THE PAST, BASED ON SOME OF OUR DISCUSSIONS ON THE SUBJECT OF
MY CONCEPT
OF
WHO I AM
TODAY
(living with my disabilities).
I COUNTERED WITH THE OBSERVATION,

DOES NOT OUR PAST DEFINE WHO WE ARE IN THE PRESENT?
HERE ARE SOME OF MY
PAST
SELF IMAGES



Walk softly and carry a big gun.




My view of
OPERATION DESERT SHIELD





A DRESS UP OCCASION











IN HONG KONG




IN THE CPO MESS




ON THE STEEL BEACH

IN BOOT CAMP
RTC
GLAKES, ILL. Feb, 1973






 I started smoking in boot camp. It was out of necessity. If you took a break without a smoke, you were accused of goofing off. With a smoke you were just taking a break.
BOOT CAMP GRAD
LAST VISIT TO N.C. 1973









MORE PERSIAN GULF OPS








I'M NOT DONE BEING THAT GUY