Memory of a Veteran and suicide 4-19-08

[sgtusmc]

   Memory of a Veteran and suicide 4-19-08
A copy to Dr Dan Potenza and Mark Levenston at the Manchester NH VA hospital
Peter Macdonald 465 Packersfalls rd Lee NH 03824 603-659-6217
   Everyone hears my words but no one will listen.  These are the thoughts as I remember my life back here in the "world" U.S.  One of my three service connected injuries from the U.S. Marine Corps is complete loss of memory of my life prior to my 17 birthday.  I forget people, names, events and any thing else unless constantly reminded. My short term memory loss is a part of my daily life.  I wrote a letter yesterday on PTSD because of a application from the VA that I received in the mail, my first day back from vacation.  I completely forgot about Judge Peter Fauver and his criminal acts that the judicial system refuses to correct.  I was reminded by an article in the paper today about Judge Coffey being suspended because she violated the law by tampering with evidence and fraud.  If the average citizen did these criminal acts we would go to jail.  Do we now live in a society with two sets of rules, one for the special class and the other for the rest of us.  Our Constitution addresses this subject by protecting the people against such abuse of power.  Judge Coffey violated the law and is not prosecuted, should we not ask why?  Will we be put in jail because the people dare say Judge Peter Fauver is a criminal and Judge Coffey is a criminal?  Everyone hears my words because the NH State Police, local Police and the Sheriff's office harass my family and I to stop my free speech. 
   U.S. Congresswoman Shea-Porter interfered and used my service connected disabilities to harm me.  The VA stops my medical care for injuries received in the line of duty.  All because I dare help a Madbury NH family with a zoning issue.  I did not understand the tears in my eyes yesterday as I wrote about PTSD.  The desire to commit suicide seemed to create a doom of relieve from the constant reminder that I can kill with out feeling.  Last week I several times laid in a thatched roof hooch on the beech which brought back my time on convoy as an American advisor.  The judicial system is doing illegal acts to stop my telling the U.S. that judge Peter Fauver is a criminal.  This Madbury NH family (whom I had never met) asked me for help.  I obey the law and help this family, yet the government officials violate the law to stop me.  The news media purposely censors the public from the truth which does not make sense.
   I ask my self did I really serve in the U.S. Marine Corps?  Did I really kill another human being for a worthless piece of paper (Our Constitution).  I do not have PTSD.  I have a constant reminder that I killed for a nation that just does not want to hear the truth when it involves judges and government officials miss using their powers.
   The VA and Boston Globe have asked me to commit suicide, yet they refuse to print my response.  I have the request in writing yet no one hears me.  I have volunteered my time every day to help others no matter what, since I returned from a conflict in 1974.  You would think some newspaper across the U.S. would see the need to tell the people that what the U.S. military veterans did was for you.  I believe that I should not have come back from the conflict alive. I can understand how my thoughts of a nation, where all the people have equal protection of the law was a false impression built in the mind of someone with amnesia.  Hearing my words or not just no longer matters, but I will continue to speak until death do us part.
Peter Macdonald Sgt USMC Semper Fi               

[Caleb]

Lawsuit: Veterans Affairs has failed to prevent suicides
By PAUL ELIAS, Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO - The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs isn't doing enough to prevent suicide and provide adequate medical care for Americans who have served in the armed forces, a class-action lawsuit that goes to trial this week charges.

The lawsuit, filed in July by two nonprofit groups representing military veterans, accuses the agency of inadequately addressing a "rising tide" of mental health problems, especially post-traumatic stress disorder.

But government lawyers say the VA has been devoting more resources to mental health and making suicide prevention a top priority. They also argue that the courts don't have the authority to tell the department how it should operate.

The trial is set to begin Monday in a San Francisco federal court.

An average of 18 military veterans kill themselves each day, and five of them are under VA care when they commit suicide, according to a December e-mail between top VA officials that was filed as part of the federal lawsuit.

"That failure to provide care is manifesting itself in an epidemic of suicides," the veterans groups wrote in court papers filed Thursday.

A study released this week by the RAND Corp. estimates that 300,000 U.S. troops — about 20 percent of those deployed — are suffering from depression or post-traumatic stress from serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We find that the VA has simply not devoted enough resources," said Gordon Erspamer, the lawyer representing the veterans groups. "They don't have enough psychiatrists."

The lawsuit also alleges that the VA takes too long to pay disability claims and that its internal appellate process unconstitutionally denies veterans their right to take their complaints to court.

The groups are asking U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Conti, a World War II U.S. Army veteran, to order the VA to drastically overhaul its system. Conti is hearing the trial without a jury.

"What I would like to see from the VA is that they actually treat patients with respect," said Bob Handy, head of the Veterans United for Truth, one of the groups suing the agency.

Handy, 76, who retired from the Navy in 1970, said he founded the veterans group in 2004 after hearing myriad complaints from veterans about their treatment at the VA when he was a member of the Veterans Caucus of the state Democratic Party. The department acknowledges in court papers that it takes on average about 180 days to decide whether to approve a disability claim.

"I would just like to see the VA do the honorable thing," said Handy, who is expected to testify during the weeklong trial.

Justice Department spokeswoman Carrie Nelson declined comment Friday.

But government lawyers have filed court papers arguing that the courts have no authority to tell the VA how to operate and no business wading into the everyday management of a sprawling medical network that includes 153 medical centers nationwide.

The veterans are asking the judge "to administer the programs of the second largest Cabinet-level agency, a task for which Congress and the executive branch are better suited," government lawyers wrote in court papers.

If the judge ordered an overhaul, he would be responsible for such things as employees workloads, hours of operations, facility locations, the number of medical professionals employed, and "even the decision whether to offer individual or group therapy to patients with" post-traumatic stress, the papers said.

The VA also said it is besieged with an unprecedented number of claims, which have grown from 675,000 in 2001 to 838,000 in 2007. The rise is prompted not from the current war, but from veterans growing older, government lawyers said.

"The largest component of these new claims is the aging veteran population of the Vietnam and Cold War eras," the government filing stated. "As they age, older veterans may lose employment-related health care, prompting them to seek VA benefits for the first time."

Government lawyers in their filings defended its average claims processing time as "reasonable," given that it has to prove the veterans disability was incurred during service time.

They also noted the VA will spend $3.8 billion for fiscal year 2008 on mental health and announced a policy in June that requires all medical centers to have mental health staff available all the time to provide urgent care. They said that "suicide prevention is a singular priority for the VA."

The VA "has hired over 3,700 new mental health professionals in the last two and a half years, bringing the total number of mental health professionals within VA to just under 17,000. This hiring effort continues," they said.

[freedominnh]

Can this whole individual's group of postings be moved to another more appropriate category than the Seacoast?

[Caleb]

Where do you think they are germane? 

[freedominnh]

On his own website.

[sgtusmc]

I served this country and the seacoast as a United States Marine.  Do you think that the people of NH should hear and listen to what NH is doing to me.

[dalebert]

I served this country and the seacoast as a United States Marine.  Do you think that the people of NH should hear and listen to what NH is doing to me.

How could anyone not have heard it by now? You post it again every single day, the exact same thing. People were sympathetic and tried to find out what exactly had happened because you spoke of it as if we should already know. You never would explain. Eventually I put you on ignore.

[J’raxis 270145]

I served this country and the seacoast as a United States Marine.  Do you think that the people of NH should hear and listen to what NH is doing to me.

How could anyone not have heard it by now? You post it again every single day, the exact same thing. People were sympathetic and tried to find out what exactly had happened because you spoke of it as if we should already know. You never would explain. Eventually I put you on ignore.

And I think that's the first time he actually replied to one of his posts.

Addendum: Holy crap, look at how many of those posts are his!