60 Minutes response

Editorial Response
Suicide leaves questions of loved ones asking why? No one wants to see the problems of someone else but will question why when it is to late. It is so common in our society to ask why when change would have made it better for everyone involved. People will type you a mental case or a threat to the public but fail to, or even care to help with the issues. Everyone wants to say that I am looking for sympathy or my 15 minutes of fame as a way to justify their own ignorance. I volunteer to help others because I came back alive to a society that cannot accept or want us for what we have done. The VA stops my medical care for combat related disabilities and the newspapers censor the facts. I have attempted suicide many times while in a PTSD state of mind only to be ignored or have the VA and NH government attempt to cause issues to force my hand at it. The editorial on suicide puts blame on the victim and ignores the consequences of what society has done to invoke this man to kill him self. Society does not owe this man or any person anything but to make the world better maybe to recognize the tone of this editorial is what caused this man’s suicide.
I am not suicidal. My mind takes me back to a reality no one can see or understand. I go places as a US Marine no person should ever have to see or live with. My tour is most likely mild to what others in combat have endured. While in my other world it has not been uncommon for me to attempt suicide. I write about it and tell the VA about it only to be rejected and everything but a weapon put in my hand by the VA and NH Government. To meet me on the street no one could tell that my four received at separate times three combat related disabilities exist. I have been lucky in the MC and after. My wife and kids accept me with love and that will have to be enough, as I will explain.
60 Minutes has a program on Sunday about US Military Veterans in need of help and care. Twenty-five percent of the homeless in the USA are Veterans. A veteran on the program explained how the effects of what we did do not appear for years sometime decades after we return. Society no longer sees the cause as our tour but as wasted, lazy lives. The perfect example is this weekend we helped a couple in Boston remodel their new house. At lunch the subject came up of a US Marine one of the other people visited in Michigan the day before. A US Marine now 26 that did a tour in Iraq and Afg. He got out and did four years of college now going for his Master Degree in medical PA. He lives with his parents and in the past year has become distance to his family and friends. He becomes controlling and seems angry when talking to any one. He does not drink or smoke but uses his books to go into his own world as if not there. I tried to explain to this person what her cousin was showing the delayed effects of PTSD. She stated to argue that he has been fine and now all of a sudden he treats his loving parents, friends and family like dirt. He has been out to long and any effect of war has long since stopped effecting him. My wife last year said the same thing to me. There is no talking to a society that will not listen. Too many people in this civilized society see and feel exactly the same about US Military Veterans. I have shown you the question now ask why the newspapers want to censor it so badly. Censoring only hurts US Military if we come home.
Peter Macdonald Sgt USMC Semepr Fi
465 Packers falls rd Lee NH 03824 603-659-6217