Hardships of an American Soldier

Hardships of An American Soldier

By Marcus Lyman

Copyright 2011 Marcus Lyman

Smashwords Edition

*****

When I see an Old Woman

Living on the Sidewalk

It makes me want to cry

so I do

Every cent of income from sales

of this book will go to

Lindsey House

A place for Senior homeless women

to have a new chance

For Lauren

My Muse

I went through the US Army RANGER SCHOOL

with a young

West Point Lieutenant.

We were Ranger Buddies

Joined at the hip through the entire course.

He went on to become the

Executive Assistant to the Chairman of

The Joint Chiefs of Staff.

I went on to become a

Homeless Alcoholic and Drug Addict.

This is my story.

Table of Contents

Intro and Ice Story

I’ve been everywhere man

Chapter 01 -The Early Years

Chapter 02 -The Army Part 1

Chapter 03 -The Army Part 2

Chapter 04 -Civilian Life

Chapter 05 -Living on the Street

Chapter 06 -Geographical

Chapter 07 -Mentality

Chapter 08 -Treatment and Recovery

Chapter 09 - US Vets

Chapter 10 - The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Chapter 11 - Current Situation

Chapter 12 - Tools

An Opinion - The War on Drugs

An Opinion -Healthcare

I was riding a City Bus in downtown Houston when we passed a gaggle of Homeless people on a corner. The passenger next to me says. Those Homeless They just don't want to work. Your compassion and empathy are completely under whelming. She had no idea. No Clue.

If you have never been in cold weather no one can explain it to you.

Well, it's COLD. COLD! You know C-O-L-D, Cold. Uh, No. I don't get it.

When the Tea Clippers came to the South Seas they brought along something the Islanders had never seen before. ICE. They had never experienced anything cold in their lives. The stuff was like magic. The farther they carried it the lighter it got. If you sat there and never took your eyes off of it - It disappeared. If you melted it into a bowl it turned into water and you could drink it. Whoa. This ice was some pretty amazing stuff. Imagine trying to explain this to the guys on the next island. You know, cold.

Nowadays people have an opinion about other people who are homeless. Save it. You are looking at a block of melting ice and it is beyond your ken.

The purpose of this book is to introduce you to one Homeless Person.

One Piece of Ice melting on the sidewalk.

I’ve been everywhere man

I Have Been Homeless In:

Alaska many times

Austin twice

Houston

San Francisco twice

Las Vegas three times

Miami

L.A.

Walnut Creek

Pasadena

Colorado

New Mexico

Arizona

Oregon

Washington State twice

Yukon Territory

British Columbia

Oklahoma

Idaho

Montana

Wyoming

Utah

Hawaii

I did get a good deal on some oceanfront property in Miami. Zero down, No interest, and No payments.Ever.I have not always been Homeless. I didn't start out that way. At one time I had a successful respectable life.

This is an American Story.

The hardships of an American Soldier.

Chapter 1 - The Early Years

We were an All American family. We had 1.5 dogs, 2 cats and a hamster. Dad had a Dodge pickup from Art Grindle. The guy on the TV. Every time Mom got a new Oldsmobile someone else in the family wrecked it. This tradition was passed on through three brand new cars. Dad, my older brother and I each crashed one.

We never lacked for anything. Dad was a Chemical Engineer. You know those reflectors and lane dividers that are glued to the highway? My Dad invented the glue that holds them in place. Did you ever see one that came loose? Ever? Mom was a Nurse for 40 years. She was the glue that held our family together.

My brother Cris was born 5 years before me on Christmas day. Two years later my brother Michael was born. He did not live very long. He died of complications he was born with. Then I came along in 1954. Our family was pretty happy together. We would do stuff like go to the Flagship pier in Galveston and fish off of the very end of it. We did that every weekend for a while. I would put the 5 pound catfish in the bath tub along with the Drum, Sheep’s head and Croakers. I would have pets until Mom was ready to cook them.

My very earliest memory was Love for someone. The feeling was so strong I remember it now, over 50 years later. I was two years old. I did not know what love was but I surely do remember feeling it. "Where's RUTH? When is RUTH coming? OH! There she is! There she is! It's RUTH!"

My parents both worked. They were not rich or even anywhere close to it. They did have enough income to have someone be there to take care of me and the house during the day. So the first person in my life that I ever felt straight up pure LOVE for was an Old Black Woman named Ruth. Ruth was born around 1900. She had grown up in the Dirty South. I imagine that all of the elders she knew as a girl had been slaves. Her Grandfather and Grandmother - Uncles - Older Cousins and all of the people in that generation and in her friends' families had been slaves. All of Them.

Ruth was so gentle and kind and beautiful and caring and intelligent that she took care of a little white kid in the 1950's and that little boy Loved her and Adored her. All of my life when I see a black person I automatically feel something good. It is a weird prejudice I know but it is one that I like. GOD Bless you Ruth wherever you are. There she is! It's RUTH!

Two years later my troubles would start. Right around 4 years old I remember my first really negative feeling. I had crapped my pants. Hah. That was bad enough. It triggered something in me. I was now worthless and quite filthy. I crawled into the dirty laundry hamper built into the bathroom wall. I covered myself with dirty laundry. That was where all the dirty stuff belonged. I passed out. My Mother found me hours later. She was not happy. Fifty years later I still experience that exact same feeling.

NOMAD

We moved constantly when I was growing up.

One year old - we moved

Two years old - we moved

Four years old - we moved

Five years old - we moved

2nd grade - 6th grade - 7th grade - 9th grade - we moved

We moved all over Houston. We moved from Houston to Tucson and back to Houston. All that moving sounds harmless. The result of all those moves for me was the certain knowledge that people and relationships were temporary and expendable. What's the point? I will have to find a new set of friends in the next neighborhood anyway.

When we got to a new neighborhood I would go door-to-door and look for kids to play with. One of my longest friendships was with my next door neighbor. I had knocked on the door and asked his Mom if there were any kids my age in the house. I knew Mark for around 5 years. We would bicycle everywhere together. We played together. We did everything together.

One day a new kid moved in a few houses down. Mark started hanging out with the new kid. They would not play with me. They would not talk to me. By that afternoon they pretended that I did not exist. I steamed over this for a little bit and then I went over to the new kid's house. I knocked on the door as hard as a ten year old could. When the kid came to the door I said Where's Mark? He's not here. I pushed past him into the front room. Mark was hiding in the corner. I must have hit him a hundred times. I hit him until I was tired of hitting him. From Ruth I learned Love and Patience and Kindness. From Mark I learned Betrayal and Abandonment and Pain. Even so, I apologize Mark. I had no right.

In second grade I also learned that there were no consequences for just plain old' not being responsible. We had a spelling workbook that we were filling out. A chapter each week. Almost all the way through the year my second grade teacher took a look in my spelling book. Nothing.Nothing. I still remember the look on her face. It was the first time I ever experienced an adult who was speechless. No harsh words. No correction. No Consequences. For the rest of my life I have just walked away from things. Why not? There are no repercussions. You're not doing what you are supposed to be doing? So what? Hey, I can just quit and walk away. You are expendable anyway.

I know now that early in the second grade I was one sick little kid. I remember being taken to the Doctor to see what the hell was wrong with me. He's Anemic. I don't remember what the treatment was. I had the same problem in 5th grade. My parents were arguing at home. I could hear them having sex in the next room. Our bedrooms had an adjoining wall. I had no idea what that was all about. Yelling and screaming one night and the next night all these animal sounds. This was some pretty scary stuff.

On top of that Khrushchev was on the TV pounding his shoe on the desk at the United Nations. The commentator says THIS MAN WANTS TO BURY YOU ALIVE! Whoa! Is he outside right now? Where is this guy? Do the police know about this? My parents went out one night to play Bridge back when that was the thing to do. When they came back home that night every light in the house was on. The Green Bay Packers were on the TV with the volume way up. I did not know what a Green Bay Packer was but they looked big and tough. They were helping me guard the den in case Khrushchev showed up. Yes sir, Scary times. TV would soon get a lot worse. And a lot more real.

I did have a measure of control over my world. I would count four steps in between the cracks in the cement on the sidewalk. All the way to school and back. Remember Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets? Anemia again. Yelling and Screaming. Animal noises in the next room. Khrushchev. What could a 10 year old possibly do to combat these powerful forces? I called on Winnie the Pooh. The Anthology. This book had every Pooh story ever written. It was huge. Sitting at my 5th grade desk I would pull out the Pooh and hide. I dropped out of 5th grade while sitting at my desk. Back, Back cruel world I've got the POOH! Not THAT kind of Pooh. I've got Winnie so just back off.

I had a sweet wonderful teacher. Mrs. Mitchell. She would quietly read to us after lunch. She read the entire Little House on the Prairie series. Those were good times but I could not cope. The other kids were questioning my behavior. She excused it. She knew I was Anemic. Hell, I was dysfunctional.

In 5th grade I was up and down. I would wear the same white pants four or five days in a row. White! They were not white by the end of the week. You can imagine. When I wasn't anemic I was hyper. I would hop over the fence in the backyard and go running in Mangum Manor Park. Around and around the park.And around.And.Around. Hours of this. Ten years old and I was a long distance runner.

Vietnam

I was just starting to notice Vietnam on TV. It was on every night. Vietnam would slowly erode all desire to be in touch with reality. It was worse than Khrushchev. That summer I looked out the window and someone was towing a '55 Chevy down the street and into our driveway. Cris had just bought it for $50.00. He also had a 1964 Impala and three different engines. He rebuilt the engines and re-did interiors all summer. I would hand him wrenches. This is where I learned to cuss. I mean, I already knew all the words, Cris taught me how to string them together into a sentence. Good sentence structure is very important.

When the 409 got installed in the Impala we went to the Drive In movie. I was 12. My older brother Cris was 17. That night at he Drive In Cris gave me the Solution. He had the Answer. On the North side of Pine Mont in Houston, where all of the black people lived, an underage kid could buy beer in 1969. We went to a place called Black Mama's.We picked up QUARTS. On the way to the Chief Drive In I drank one quart of beer. Man, where has this stuff been all my life? This is pretty good! When we got to the Movies I drank another quart. That was two quarts of beer in about 20 minutes. A 12 year old.First beer ever. OK. I was a happy camper. I was all over the back seat of the car. Yelling.Hooting.Hollering. I was a VERY happy DRUNK camper. The whole world was just a great place to be. After about ten minutes of this the whole wonderful world started to really suck. All I remember for the rest of the night was hanging my head out the back door of the car with the door wide open. I had never had any beer before and I had never thrown up like that before. As far as I know I threw up the rest of the night. I have no idea how we got home. I laid off of beer until I was 25. Vietnam was still on TV.

One day around this time the neighbor across the street implied that my mother was telling him a lie. I yelled DON'T YOU CALL MY MOTHER A LIAR YOU SON OF A BITCH! and I went right for him. He was a grown man. I probably weighed 100 pounds. I did not hesitate. Mom grabbed me on my way past her. I don't think there was actually any way that I could have hurt the man. But I was willing to give it a try.

In the same house that Cris and I rebuilt engines and got drunk together we also started smoking weed. Cris and a friend of his were locked in the bathroom one afternoon. That in itself was pretty weird. They were laughing like I never heard before. Now I knew something was up. When they came out of the bathroom they had suddenly become retarded. What are you guys doing? We've been smoking grass. Uh huh. I am glad I asked. What the hell was he talking about? What does that do for you? It makes everything funny. I believe That. And it makes time pass by really slow. This was my older brother. The Alpha Male.The Pack Leader. I did not understand but I had a certain obligation to follow. A little later I was in the front yard with a lit cigarette. I was holding a blade of grass from the lawn up to the red hot end. I don't get it. I suppose this was very similar to being shown a piece of ice for the first time on some South Sea Island. You know. Grass.

One afternoon, after a long day of building tension, we nearly lost my brother. I knew where he was. That was a big part of the problem. I had been working on a rabbit hutch all morning. My brother and I had been growling at each other through the whole process. I can't remember why. I was still working on that hutch. Cris was laying on a chaise lounge. Mom came out to the patio and lay down on the chaise next to him.

I said something.

Cris said something.

Mom looked at him and said What's wrong with you?

I said, He's just F---ed! Bad move.

I was not even looking in the direction of my brother but I KNEW he had just come up out of that chaise lounge. I didn't look back. I hit the brick wall at the edge of the back yard and disappeared. As soon as I cleared that wall the rabbit hutch cleared the wall too. Did I mention that my older brother was Very Strong.Very. I headed straight for my rifle.

I had put a lot of work into that hutch. Just like when the old man across the street called my mother a liar, I immediately went for retaliation. I was cramming rounds into that rifle as fast as I could. I was going to go after my brother with a full magazine. Did I mention that my brother is really strong? The good news is I was so focused on loading up that I never saw Mom coming. She had that gun out of my hands and out of sight so fast I still have no idea how she did it. She had quick reflexes. She knew I was going for that gun just as soon as I did. I did not see that rifle again for a long time.

Reality Check

Reality was no prize. In fact