I Rode on the Wings of an Angel

By Maxwell Bennett

I Road on the Wings of an Angel a humorous like at the life of a person that was victimize by its Government sent to prison and how he survived. Youll see how Angels appeared, how they always seem to be at his side during every major event warding off what would other wise had been disaster situation. After being sentenced and leaving the Federal courtroom preparing to go to prison instead of being condemned by the angels, the angels comforted him. See how when in the prison system threats from fellow inmates threats from the correctional officers, the angels often stepped in to intervene? In I Road on the Wings of an Angel, I try to show the funny often-humorous innocent side of it all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 18, 2008
• ISBN: 9781465322067

Maxwell Bennett

I was born on a warm fall early morning in Youngstown Ohio. As a little kid growing up my mother moved us to Chicago, Ill. Not knowing I had a creative artistic nature, I won an award in an art contest at Dixon Elementary Grade School. I’m now living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My name is Maxwell Bennett I –graduated from Governor State University with a Masters in Communications with an emphasis in Behavior Science. Some of my fun adventures were producing cable television shows owned a modeling agency out of Marquette University, even taught computer classes there. During all those adventures and then some I never stopped writing, I have written manuscripts from issues such as “foster kids to stepchildren and the effect society has on them” to issues concerning “vitamins taken out of the vegetables and placed on the store shelves.” I take great pride in writing about the joys of life. In all the pitfalls of my life, experiencing the life of poverty walking in the shadows of death, surviving and over coming homeless, and living on the streets, it is the funny side that I write about.

Book preview

Chapter 1

I Rode On The Wings Of An Angel

When going to prison, it is best to have an angel go with you. Angels have always been depicted as men with wings. While that is a beautiful and a serene view, it is far from the truth. Angels come in all forms and shapes and sizes too. I know because I’ve seen them around me all my life. I heard somewhere that they didn’t come as women. However, I saw it with my own eyes. Maybe those people believed that because they never saw one. Most scholars are aware of the nephilim.

March 16, this one angel did come to me in the form of a man angel. He was about nine feet tall, and his wings must have extended thirty-six feet. It was about 1:00 PM when he landed in front of me, and it was a good thing nobody else saw this, but me.

I was walking down by the lakeside when he appeared. I love the sunny days at the lake; the sun was high in the sky, which was clear blue, and on some days there might be small white clouds.

Although he appeared all of a sudden, I wasn’t startled. I was glad to see him. He asked me to hop aboard, to climb on his spread-out wings. I didn’t sit on his back, but was instructed after we took off to stand with my right leg on his right wing and my left leg on his left wing. He didn’t flap his wings when we took flight either; after all I was standing on them. If those wings were to flap, I would have fallen off.

We were swirling up into the deep blue sky. There were some clouds, but it seemed like we were isolated up there. The air was clean and fresh, our speed was not too fast and not to slow, it seems to be just right. I didn’t even feel rocky or shaky standing on his wings. This was a first, but I was in a state of mind where riding on the wings of an angel was needed.

This was not just like any other day. I had issues, and this day they seemed overwhelming. It all started when I had to go to federal court for working and receiving a Veterans pension at the same time. They called it fraud, but it wasn’t fraud. Even if it was, it wasn’t fair the small pension they gave me to feed and cloth my family. I was young then and didn’t know how I was to handle something I saw as unfair. All I knew is that my family deserved better than this. My way to rebel or protest was to work anyway and keep complaining to them that I should be on service-connected compensation. That is why it was not fraud.

I spoke to the VA doctors and social workers over the course of ten years telling them I would not and could not stop working. Amvet was my power of attorney that was supposed to intervene in my behalf.

In reality I asked for a service-connected compensation. And believe me I didn’t know the difference at the time between compensation and pension. I know the difference now. When I got approved, it was something other than compensation. It was called a nonservice-connected pension. Young and ignorant then in my twenties, who knows perhaps I felt that after applying for service connected I should have gotten it and was in denial? I took it without hesitating because I had no choice. This was back in 1968 right after getting out of the Vietnam War. Thirty-two years ago is when that was, and for the first few years, I never thought of working.

My wife and I had seven kids; she was very religious and didn’t believe in birth control. We struggled to make ends meet. In any case, these were our kids, and they deserved better. The older my boys got, the more they wanted to be like those that had the brand-name shoes. They started wondering where were their bikes. Tried to start a magazine, even struggled at import export. Nothing was working. They had all kinds of get-rich schemes in the magazines. I tried all of them. I believed they couldn’t be false because the federal government wouldn’t let them get away with that.

The justice department was the office that fought drugs and white-collar crime. These get-rich schemes were all over the place so they knew they were there—everybody do. And if they weren’t legit, the justice department would arrest them as they would any white-collar crime, so why not put my faith in them, why not risk everything career and employment opportunities; take a gamble I said.

My oldest boys went into high school. That is when I was (if truth be told) faced with making something happen. My second oldest aged sixteen was having trouble in school. I knew this because I overheard him talking to his older brother who had just turned seventeen. Also, the teachers would send home notes about his behavior. I loved my boys more then life itself. Would do anything for them and wouldn’t let anyone hurt them in any way. Maybe I was too overprotective as I look back, but it’s too late now.

After hearing my boys discussing this one issue, I called them to the living room after dinner.

It was a cold night with snow blanketing the ground, but our house was warm. The house we lived in was a cape cod—a brick house—kind of small but cozy in its own way.

Our home was just fine at first; however, we grew out of it fast, and we could not afford a larger place, at least not depending on a pension only. My wife and I slept downstairs near the kitchen. I could always hear one of my sons sneaking down to the refrigerator late at night.

The four oldest slept in one room with a window; when they got older, they told me how they would slip down and out late at night. There were two bunk beds in there; they’d tie a rope to the one nearest the window. The other three had the rest of the upstairs that was more of an open space. The living room and the dining room were small but cute. I was planning to decorate the basement and make bedrooms down there because it was a whole basement, even thought about putting a partition, separating the living room and the dining room because it was now too small.

Son what’s wrong why are you getting in these fights? That is what you were talking about to your brother, is there anything I can do? I was looking for a smile from him. Dad, I was fighting on the school bus. They won’t leave me alone. They keep talking about my shoes, he said, bowing his head down. Then raising his head up, he was rambling a mile a minute, I can handle myself, Dad, you taught us well how to take care of ourselves.

Falling back in my chair. Never in my wildest dreams had I ever thought that the things I taught them about self-defense they would use or need in a school environment.

Dad, they talked about our coats, he was speaking so softly I had to lean forward. I don’t want to go to school anymore, I’m tired of people teasing me every day.

The walls thundered and curtains lost their wrinkles when I said, Son, sorry I can’t get you what you want. I’m doing the best I can; we get $1100 a month from the VA pension. I tried to get a normal job, but they keep turning me down. I wasn’t really yelling at my son. It was more expressive although now I wonder did I fall on the defense, was my manhood threaten when talking to him? After looking out the window, noticing the soft snowflakes floating from the sky, son, we get just enough to pay the rent and some on the electric and gas, we can just barely keep a phone on.

Don’t know what kind of world we’re living in, son, they want us to pay the bills on time but won’t pay us a decent income when we work; they give me a pension that is not fair and want me to be grateful? It’s not happing just to us, everyday I hear others complaining that the cost of living is wrong, that SSI checks are unfair. If we’re lucky we can get enough food for the month, speaking and clearing my throat and trying to control my emotions.

Not many people will ever experience or know what it’s like feeding and clothing a large family.

There were the issues of my wife’s needs and myself as well. So what did I do? I went to work. I got a part-time job as a school bus driver.

The pension wasn’t enough. What is it that the Veterans Affairs don’t understand, showing them the budget, which always left us in the red; and suffering dearly didn’t move them at all? The school bus job didn’t pay much, but I was able to buy my kids bikes, clothes, and even got them a bigger and better place to live.

I knew I had to fight this injustice, but didn’t know how. Wanting to change things for myself—for all who suffer; this was my calling.

What was the injustice? The injustice was that if I drop the pension and keep the job, I’d be in the same boat not being able to pay basic bills, and if I just accepted the pension, I’d be in the poverty line freezing in the winter because the gas was turned off.

As time kept rolling and things were comfortable having a job alongside of the pension, I couldn’t quite understand why things couldn’t be this fair and legal. I wasn’t asking for new cars or a fancy house just enough to be proud, to be able to pay my bills and buy my kids the things that would keep them out of trouble.

Soon I realized that the people in Congress were the people I had to see. I also realized that the reason they didn’t make things comfortable for us people on pensions was because they didn’t want us to be happy while they had to work. That was selfish and wrong.

If I was disabled or unable to work, that is no reason to keep me below poverty. All you so call middle-class and upper self-righteous people feel that because you work and others don’t that they should not be able to live a decent life. You wouldn’t feel that way if your income was stripped or set below poverty levels. Those are my feelings, now how do I get to Congress and share them.

I knew the poverty level was to low, so I kept working and receiving the pension, and that is how it all started.

Years went by that we had food; it was nothing extraordinary, it was the way it should be in an advanced society. It was the way it should be for all Americans and people of the world. We should all have enough food and clothing.

The cost of living should not be four dollars or is it five dollars an hour, it should be higher; and if it is to be, then a supplemental income should be allowed.

Another words the SSI and all other kinds of government pension agencies should be acceptable to those that are working low-income dead-end jobs because they have no real health care.

Any income making (to make ends meet and creating comfortable living standards) should not be a crime.

There are jobs in America, such as distributing yellow pages door to door where the government turns their backs, making it okay for those on pensions to make that extra money. Why is that?

Because those jobs are the jobs at the bottom of the barrel, jobs not even temporary laborers want.

In my state of Wisconsin, they have what is called W-2. This is a program to replace welfare. What the program does is to take the welfare pension away, leaving you with nothing; however, they’ll train you for jobs and send you out for work. Of course, they left out the male; he don’t get trained, but can obtain food stamps. Maybe some people can’t work having some kind of mental disorder; the government gives them SSI. But those that can work put them to work, for all I care after all I work, but the pay must be the true cost of living. The true cost no matter what the job is. All jobs are important, and we must not keep putting more value on one job from another.

See as a child I heard about World War I, World War II, and Korean veterans working and getting a pension. Seems to me that once again, injustice is being done on black people in general. It was the sixties when most of the blacks became major players in government, law, and business, and yes even the military. But as most black people know whenever we get involved in something that white people have been doing for years, the rules changes. In the case of the veterans working and receiving a veteran’s pension in post Korean and World War I and II. It was okay. The now new post-Vietnam and Gulf war vets, having blacks involved at a larger scale and also wanting their benefits, were being monitored more; and now large-scale prosecution starts, and one of the victims was me.

This is all being kept on the downlow as not to stir up any fuss. The government might want to make a case that it is the computer age that makes catching and prosecution of Vietnam veterans applicable. But I tell you now that’s a lie. This is a good time to point out this is not a black and white issue—a race issue. While that observation was brought up, it would be fair to show that all people of low income, all people of disable statues, all people trying to make ends meet have been and are being victimized by the status quo. If you penalize Vietnam vets, penalize the vets of past foreign wars.

This is how it all started. My claim of not being a criminal is based on the above.

Even when going to court I found injustice. They gave me this public defender because I had no money. Well, I found a loophole that could have set me free, but he wouldn’t fight for me.

Congress is where I wanted to be, not the courtroom. The courtroom was the last resort. I was always impressed with the legend of Davy Crockett from the history books. He went to Congress and stood before all those powerful men. He asked for justice there, and that is where I planned to go. I knew from a reliable source that there were a whole lot of us vets being punished, and my plan was to get them and go to Congress to change the law, allowing us to work and receive a pension. We never got there. My backup plan would be to use the loophole.

The laws that could keep my name clear were IRC 26 section 3401 A and C. read it, and you’ll see my point. One way to do this is by going to the Blacks’ law dictionary. My game plan wasn’t just defrauding the government it was exposing them.

There were three strategies if one didn’t work then I would try the next. If plan two didn’t work I’d move on to plan three: One, I was to get the veterans mailing list and ask those vets to go to Washington DC; two, win in court and expose the injustice being done to me; and three, to go to jail and write this book, which would lead me to the talk shows, and there I would expose the government cover up, but most of all bring attention to America what I believed was our constitutional rights.

First I never knew it would be so hard to get the mailing list. I never got it before the court date. And as far as winning in court, I tried to get a couple of lawyers to view my stance on the case.

They didn’t want anything to do with the government. I couldn’t even find one that was familiar with the laws on wages and income that could clear the fraud charges. All the lawyers had to do was look long and hard research and want the truth to be told. There wouldn’t be no charges if I could get Congress to understand that the people are living in poverty and to let up a bit.

I had no support and was going it alone; Americans every day are getting caught in this catch-22 sponsored by our government where they’d work and receive a pension in order to make ends meet.

So here I am finding myself strolling down the lakeside, scared to go to prison, and I felt that I wasn’t a criminal. I worked my whole life, didn’t steal swear hell I didn’t even drink liquor. I was the guy that wouldn’t throw litter on the street, married for thirty-eight years to the same woman. We had our ups and downs, but it was a loving relationship.

As I walked I spoke to the birds that I knew, squires that shared the same space with me, chick monks that I always played with at times in the greenery. They comforted me. At times I cried, and they were the only ones that knew and stayed with me.

After the angel disappeared, I went home and went to bed. In the morning I woke up as usual around 5:00 AM to go to work. The job had a shuttle come and get some of us that had no transportation. My plans were to work up until 2:00 PM because soon after that I had to be in court for sentencing.

The lawyer I could afford was the public defender. That should signal that I didn’t have enough income. When he and I met, I asked him to read the US codes IRC 26 section 3401 A and C and Art. 1§2, C1.3, Art. 1, §9, C1.4, which states that I’m excluded from gross income and that the money I work for was not wages, which technically means I could work and get the pension.

If he would look this code up, he could see my point and win it for me. Instead of me being penalized for their mistake, they could just admit the error and correct it.

His mind was not able to grasp it or comprehend.

Instead, my lawyer grabbed his head in frustration. His frustration was because he believed in his heart he was the patriot.

Who was the patriot—him, me, or both of us? This would be a lost cause; justice was blind with its hands tied behind it’s back.

I felt so alienated; no one wanted anything to do with this, and it was the most important trial in American history. It would have changed the course of history forever. Knowing that I was gifted, could I handle my own case?

I had reservations of knowing that the forces of power were against me. Truth and righteousness had no place here in this courtroom were my thoughts. I told Brian, my public defender, I was going to get someone else to handle my case that his only job was to make it easier for the system to shuffle me through the courts and into prison.

He just stood there a clean-cut young white man liberal in statue, as if I said nothing. Dressed in his favorite gray suit, he shifts all 185 pounds of his weight to the desk. Brian stroked his short brown hair as he spoke while waiting for the judge to enter.

In his voice was complicity with the government. There was an invisible contract with the government, and he was more or less going along for the ride. Then not being afraid of him, I asked, How many cases have you won? You could hear a pin drop when he answered none. He might have commented on that better, but he didn’t.

I had better be a good chess player because this was the move of my life. The moves I had in front of me were serious. Could I plead my own case go to trial and all the way to the Supreme Court? I was going to make this a national event.

Well, I decided not to do my own case. It wasn’t fear that stops me. The best move is to roll with the punches, that going it alone even though it seemed right might have been stupid.

Chapter 2

The Judgment

I needed to understand how it could be fraud. I was paying the VA three hundred dollars a month out of my check as an overpayment. They were aware of my action, and fraud was not the case. My thought of fraud was doing something without the other party knowing. Trying to deceive the government would be fraud in my book. Working my way to the courtroom, I still kept my head up, knowing that justice was up to them, not me.

I was repaying them for working. There was a form that I had to fill out every year stating any income I was making. In a sense that was the fraud, and that is what they charged me with because on it I said I didn’t have another income. Technically, I did fill out the form right because according to blacks’ law dictionary IRC 26 section 3401 A and C, I wasn’t earning an income, but it would take a good lawyer to make the all mighty government admit their mistake. I believe it to be a loophole that is closed now, but not corrected.

About my appeals for service-connected compensation I applied for, they denied me because I needed my doctor’s medical records. I had only given them the navy doctors from Hawaii and Japan because that is where they sent me. That is where I got my medical treatment while still in the service.

I was sure the military doctors would be more than enough. On the outside world, I didn’t give them my doctor. When the Veterans Administration told me they needed my private doctor’s records, by that time my doctor had retired and moved back to Greece, his home. He retired in the seventies, and it’s the year 2005 as I write this book.

I have been on pension from the VA since nineteen sixty-nine, took a job in 1979, and they decided to take me to court in 1999. So they asked for all the money they gave me from 1979. I still don’t understand why they waited so long to stop me, maybe even throwing me off my pension, unless they wanted to wait until the amount of over payment to add up.

As far as my military injury, it happened in 1966. I was on the USS Epperson (DD719) flagship destroyer. It had six five-inch guns with ten twenty-one-inch torpedoes and more. I was proud of that, and I was on it because I was one of the best in my training and that qualified me. We traveled with the aircraft carrier USS Hornet headed to Yankee Station in the Tonkin to supply naval gunfire support off South Vietnam.

Our ship was the lead ship in the group, and en route to Vietnam, our job was to protect the aircraft carrier from submarines and any hostile intruders.

It was late night. I had just gotten off my shift at the helm and the seas were