Down on Cripple Creek: An Iowa Boy Goes Off to War

By Larry McDonald

- V.A. Rejection - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Major Depression - Homelessness - Restoration Through Jesus Christ These are just a few of the hurdles I've had to endure and cross in my life... I'm telling my story now in hopes of being able to help those who have been assaulted, homeless and destitute. Also to relay the very important message, that God will never leave or forsake you no matter what you are going through in your life. He will be there for you in your darkest hour and deliver you and then restore you and love you more then you've ever been loved. He has given back to me more than I could ever imagine... God's Blessing's be upon whoever chooses to read this book...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098023263

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Down on Cripple Creek

An Iowa Boy Goes Off to War

Larry McDonald

Copyright © 2019 by Larry McDonald

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. COPYRIGHT © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

High School in Iowa, Surfing Instructor, and Lifeguard in Florida

Four-Year Enlistment, USMC

Honorable Discharge and a Thirty-Three-Year Publishing Career

Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA), Fired from My Job, and Meds Nearly Killed Me

VA Neglect

Suicide Attempts and Warehoused in a South Florida County Jail

Plea Deal and 2,760 Days in a County Jail

Moving On / One Day at a Time

Recovery, Treatment, and Restored

Dedication

To the thousands of military men and women who went to serve their country and were abused by superior officers and others within the ranks of America’s military machine, the Lord will hear your prayers. He will come and lead you through the ugliness of this world into His pure and holy light.

A special thank you to Mr. Roger Girard, former therapist and counselor at Bay Pines VA Medical Center in St. Petersburg, Florida, for his help and concern for the thousands of veterans abused while in service. He passed away in March 2018.

To Dr. J. Mangold for his words of wisdom and truth.

To my mother and father, sister, brother-in-law and brother, I thank you for all you tried to do to help me over the years and my Aunt Ruby for her support and encouragement that helped me stabilize after very trying times. My cousin Dick and his wife Mary Lou for opening their home to me.

Also, I include the thousands of homeless vets in the woods and streets of America. It’s a national disgrace to have allowed this to happen yet give billions to countries that hate our guts! The political leaders of this country will have a lot to deal with when they stand before the Living God to give account of their lives. I pray they repent before that day comes.

To all of those suffering with posttraumatic stress disorder, I pray for you daily. I pray that the Lord helps you through your darkest hours and can help ease your pain. God’s mercy and grace be upon you! In Jesus’s name, amen!

Introduction

This book is a true account of events that happened throughout my seventy years of living, working, and attempting to cope. I decided to share these things with you and the world in hopes of being able to help those who have been abused, tortured, and ignored by a system that truly failed me.

There is hope and there truly is a loving God who will be there for anyone who calls out to him. He will carry you and deliver you through your most difficult storm.

The epidemic that has blanketed our military for many years, the rejection of our veterans by the V.A. and our government, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, major depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and homelessness are topics I have chosen to highlight in my book.

Some of this material is hard to comprehend, especially since it all happened here in the United States of America. I pray that you read this with an open mind and heart.

Chapter 1

High School in Iowa, Surfing Instructor, and Lifeguard in Florida

It was midsummer of 1964, and I just finished swim team practice in our small western Iowa town. Today, I walked home from Sunnyside Park because my bike broke down and I don’t drive yet. It’s only a couple miles, hoping someone would give me a lift. The swim team is doing great again this year, and our coach is one of the best; we don’t lose many swim meets and haven’t in years! Every age bracket is loaded, so the team looks strong for the coming years. It was really hot out today; maybe I should have called my sister to pick me up.

When I made it home, I thought about taking a nap, pondering about the coming school year and what lies ahead. I know the football and basketball seasons will be exciting; we have a lot of talented athletes and have won our conference titles in both sports, with our team even going to the state in basketball. (I broke my arm in basketball practice, so it kind of slowed me down, although I love playing basketball.)

During my junior and senior years, I was hired at the local men’s clothing store. I got along with everyone in town and with most everybody I met. I guess that’s why the store owner approached me to work there. I met so many people from all over the area who came to shop where I worked. Our community was more of a centrally located hub with some of the nicer stores.

Time seems to fly by so fast. It seems like yesterday that I was playing those high school games and enjoying my life in rural America! I graduated from high school in 1967, and I am now in Florida living with my aunt and uncle in Merritt Island.

My uncle works at the Cape and drops me off at my job at the pier in Cocoa Beach every morning. It was an exciting time, and there was lots to do down there. It seems that I spent so much time at the pier, that I hardly saw my relatives and cousin. My uncle works so much on the Surveyor Space Craft team, so he drops me off at the pier around 6:00 a.m. and picks me up late most evenings and takes me to his home in Merritt Island. Since my cousin was younger, there wasn’t much for me to do there, so from May to November, I more or less lived at the Cocoa Beach Pier and loved it.

I made some great friends and surfed with some of the top surfers in the world, giving private surfing and swimming lessons now and enjoyed meeting people from all over the United States.

Spring and summer have passed, heading into the fall when I got a call from Iowa, informing me that I should catch the next flight home! My mom said that she got a notice from the county and that I was second on the draft list and I needed to fly home ASAP if I still wanted to try to get into the Navy!

I left the refreshing beaches of East Florida, heading back to Iowa, and got off the plane in Omaha with snow on the ground, flip-flops on my feet, cord pants on and a Hobie T-shirt. My younger brother would be a sophomore that year, so I didn’t have time to do much with him when I returned from Florida. My older sister worked and didn’t live at home. She finally got her own apartment, so I didn’t see her very often.

Chapter 2

Four-Year Enlistment, USMC

I ran into some major problems trying to enter the Navy. I was told by the recruiter that the Secretary of Defense had just implemented a new entrance procedure where they alternate test score results each month. This month, they took middle and lower scores on the entrance exams; the next month, they would have taken the higher and the average test score applicants. I had a high score, so I would have to wait a month to be able to enlist, and by that time, I would have been drafted. It didn’t make much sense to me. I had to shop around for another branch of service to see if I could get in there, but the Air Force was full, and the Navy recruiter told me that the Marine Corps was part of the Navy and that they would give me what I had asked for if I could have gotten into the Navy. (Right!) That didn’t happen. He also said that the draft was putting guys in the Marine Corps also, so I decided to enlist for four years and fight for my country as my father had done in World War II in Europe! So many guys tried to avoid Vietnam, from going to college to trying to find some way not to go! Crazy! The draft had everyone scared and confused—naive eighteen-year-olds going off to possibly die for their country.

On December 27, 1967, I boarded a plane in Omaha with a dozen or two other Marine Corps enlistees. San Diego, here we come! It was a long flight, and those seats weren’t very comfortable. We were herded onto buses at Lindbergh Field Airport in San Diego, California. The Marine Corps Recruit Depot was located on the northern edge of the airport, but we had to drive all the way around to be able to enter the depot.

The bus pulled up to an empty parking lot. There were yellow footprints painted on the asphalt, and we were told to line up and to stand on a set of footprints, so we did, as a couple of drill instructors began yelling and cursing at us. We were told not to look at them when we were addressing them (if you did, you would more than likely be knocked to the ground). We stood at attention, and I recalled one of the drill instructors was walking up and down the rows of recruits, and when he came by me, he whispered in my ear, You’re mine! I had no idea what he meant by that, but I would definitely find out exactly what he meant later.

That night, we went through the process of getting all of our clothes and hygiene items, making our bunks, and trying to get to sleep. A lot was going through my mind at that time. Did I make the right decision? What was all of this going to entail? A friend of mine from my hometown had gone into the Marine Corps a year prior, and he made it through boot camp, so I figured that if he could do it, so could I! However, it was a real bummer that we couldn’t call back home to see how everyone was,