Throwaway Soldier

Joseph curled up on the damp sidewalk, shielding his head with his arms to avoid the bombs raining down on him. “It hurts my head! The noise is going to crack my head in two pieces. My arm is gone! I can’t find my buddy! Oh there he is, what is left of him, shattered into pieces! It is my fault! I should have saved him.”

“You didn’t help your friend,” the voice said. “You can’t be forgiven. I am watching you. Listen to what I say. Everyone is against you and you will be punished. Drown your pain. Have a drink and take drugs until you have no feelings at all. It will feel a lot better - I promise.”

“Am I still there?” the homeless man pleads. “Am I still in Iraq? Is this all in my mind? I want to be left alone to wallow in my sorrow. I have no money and have no one to help me.” He was having a temporary lucid moment but soon would be back in the land of paranoia and schizophrenia.

Joseph was thirty years old and had spent the better part of the last six years on the mean streets of New York. He agonized, not realizing that he was suffering from mental illness. Sleeping on little pieces of cardboard and urinating on the sidewalks was a hellish practicality. He was terrified to seek out a homeless shelter seeking the freedom of no walls. He was also terrified of the people that frequented these places. With the flip of his imagination, they could become marauding soldiers out to kill him.

Joseph picked one of the festering scabs on his leg and imagined he saw little maggots sawing on his body. His hair was filthy and crawling with lice. The movement of these creatures drove him to distraction as he remembered the moldy, vermin laden food which he was forced to eat when his supplies ran out. He was positive that they still were eating through his insides.

The psychiatric facility that he had checked into once medicated him so thoroughly that he was in a drug induced haze. He felt he had lost himself for four days before he left the shelter, full of mistrust and fear that he was becoming nothing at all.

When it was cold, Joseph rode the subways or slept over warm grates. Sometimes he found shelter in the train and bus stations until he was rousted from his sleeping place. He was shivering and lonely and all alone. When his disability check stretched far enough, he drugged and drank himself silly, causing his cognitive abilities to become impaired. Under the influence, he became vulnerable on the streets to predators who stole what little possessions he had. He was not aware that he had post traumatic stress syndrome and also a brain injury, contributing to serious mental illness and substance abuse problems.

Desolation rolled in on threatening waves, adding to the drug use which threatened to obliterate him. He felt abjectly hopeless and alone. Oblivious to anyone else in his periphery, Joseph lined up his bags of clothing and items he had picked up on the street and laid his head on the dirty objects. “I’m not homeless. I’m waiting for my friend to wake up. He’s not really dead. He’s somewhere else and I will find him.”

It’s sad to say, but Joseph was one of the forgotten ones. His untreated condition was debilitating without the right medication and counseling. He was angry but didn’t realize the cause for his fury. He rationalized that his identification had been stolen by federal agents and that they were watching his every move. Tragically, he was beginning to feel a sense of satisfaction as he moved daily around the city, trying to avoid the stares of strangers.

Joseph had been so mentally beaten down that he could trust no one. Any encounters he had had with his family or former friends had been critical, judgmental and humiliating. He began to avoid intimate relationships and couldn’t establish a rapport with anyone in order to obtain the psychological help he needed. The trauma he had encountered had encouraged his homelessness which removed his ability to cope.

In spite of his hardships, Joseph remained remarkably resilient and even creative as he developed survival skills so he could function in a reduced capacity in his little world. Although he was ignored, he continued to attempt to express himself and shared his unorthodox views aggressively and assertively to all passersby who did their best to avoid him.

“If I don’t look at him, he doesn’t exist,” people told themselves. “He’s crazy and dirty and doesn’t belong in my universe.”

Since Joseph realized that they all thought he was insane, he acted even more irrational for dramatic effect. He would make snatching motions at their clothing, frightening them even more. Once in a while, a stranger would throw a few coins over his shoulder, without glancing in his direction.

Joseph’s psychological wounds were so deep that tears would roll down his cheeks in dirty little lines. He knew his actions were perceived to be strange and he heard voices that were not obvious to others. He felt someone was trying to harm him so kept his countenance angry and cross in order to frighten his ghosts away. His hands shook as he wiped the drool from his mouth. He felt rejected and mocked by others.

After all the flags, bands and parades, where is the Veterans Administration?

Will no one help this throwaway soldier? Is Joseph destined to remain a forgotten statistic?