The Gay Veteran

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

April 24, 2009

Question About Policy:

What good does it do to end the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, when I as a gay Vietnam veteran am forced to face reverse discrimination from the VA and VA hospitals in Little Rock Arkansas? I am currently receiving only two medications for PTSD from CAVHS because of my openly gay status and because I refuse to participate in McClelland’s medical research projects. I’ve filed reverse discrimination suites with the DOJ, The FBI, VA Social Services and The Secretary of Veterans Affairs and all to no avail. I currently live below the poverty level on a Social Security Disability and have since 1974, personal transportation is non-existent and I live on the social blacklist also because of my openly gay status. My medical care is almost non-existent because of the closest VA medical facility is 50 miles to the east. The VA doctors all but forget me unless I call for an appointment.

Every door that can be shut to me has been shut and doesn’t look like any of them will ever be opened again. For all of the good the VA has shown me over the years and in the present they might just as well have never been and I might as well be living on the back of the moon. The Little Rock VA’s mentality has been in the past and continues to be that I am just looking for a free ride. I was granted a non-service pension in 1980, which was then terminated in June of 1982, because and I am quoting Dr. Louis Neel a psychologist at Ft Roots, in North Little Rock “his grammar and diction are consistent with a 9 grade education and self professed bisexuality”. Dr. Neel further stated that I was lazy, no good and had never worked a day in my life. Since that time it’s been nothing but outright hell, red tape, rejection and denials from the VA from the top to the bottom.

Fredrick H King the adjudications officer further outright lied to the Little Rock Office of a Senator in stating that I wish to withdraw my claim for compensation due to lack of transportation, when in fact I had informed CAVHS that I wished to cancel a medical appointment due to lack of transportation.

So I ask again, what good will it do to end the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy with the VA, especially the Little Rock VA Regional Office and CAVHS continuing to be a brick wall on benefits and medical care?

Coalition of Gay Vietnam Veterans

Regardless of how bad a location is or the situation, it does end eventually, as all things do in the course of time. What really irks is when you try to talk to your phyciatrist about it, they write it up as paranoia or delusions, try and talk about it with people around and its either fist city or don’t tell me your sob stories and move your ass away. Nobody and I mean nobody has the power to keep a bad situation going forever, no matter how much they might think they can. VA healthcare in Little Rock AR is some of the worst in the Nation and overall healthcare in Arkansas, for the poor utterly stinks.

People are quite to tell me there is no one psychically holding me here, so there’s no reason for me not to move to a better location, all well and good when there’s enough money to do it with. See those people aren’t going to have to live with the consequences of homelessness, of living on the street and sleeping under a bridge or eating out of a soup kitchen and aimless wondering going nowhere. Nor will they have to live with having to give up the housing they already have or what little property has been gained.

Some towns give mental and physical energy and some towns steal it away and leave behind just enough to keep going. Some towns give dreams and all of the things needed to achieve those dreams, some towns steal them and Morrilton can be found in the number of towns that steal them, for Morrilton is one of those towns that knocks out the normal biological rhythms and replaces them with stagnated depression and hopelessness. It goes back to the old Murphy’s Law, if there is a way to ruin it and fuck it up to uselessness, Morrilton will find it and the only thing old people here do is wait to die.

Because of the idiotic fight to raise the cost of tobacco products lead by the Speaker Of The House Robbie Wills and signed into law by the equally idiotic Governor Mike Beebe, I’m thinking about growing my own tobacco.  No not the Wildwood Flower variety but the legal over the counter type tobacco that you can buy in the store and/or through the mail, and thereby circumventing the retail price and tax on it altogether.

I’ve done some research about it on the web and found some places that sell tobacco seeds and it doesn’t violate any Federal or State laws.  This was nothing more than greedy politicians targeting a selected group to bleed as much money from the old cash cow, while the bleeding is good.  It would do my heart glad if tobacco users were to march on the Capitol and dumped tons and tons of tobacco at the Capitol doors and all over the lawn, in protests of the obsessive and outrageous cost of tobacco products now being charged.

A lousy 6 oz bag of Midnight Special that used to cost me around 7 to ten dollars now cost around 35.00 dollars per 6 oz bag.  After researching how to grow tobacco on the Internet it seems I’m not alone in the idea of growing my own, so with that in mind I emailed the Arkansas State Plant Board about the legality of growing tobacco for personal use.  The following in its entirety is what I was advised by the Arkansas State Plant Board

 Mr. *******: There are no regulations against growing tobacco in Arkansas.  I would suggest you buy your seed from a reputable source since the seed are usually pretty expensive.  If you purchase your seed from a local retail store, there would be no regulatory issues to address.  If you are purchasing seedlings and they are being shipped from outside the state, the seedlings would need to be free of soil before entering the state.  This can be accomplished by the seedlings being bare root and washed free of soil or the seedlings could have been produced in a commercially prepared soil-less medium (ie jiffy pots) and this would be satisfactory. Please feel free to get in touch if I can provide additional information. Terry WalkerDirector, Plant Industry DivisionArkansas State Plant Board#1 Natural Resources Dr.Little Rock, AR 72205 501-225-1598 (phone)501-225-3590 (fax)terry.walker@aspb.ar.gov

Upon further research I found that I could even grow them in an apartment or in the home, as tobacco plants are easy to grow and after the initial first seed plants will continue to produce tobacco after the stalks have been harvested.  Insects are not a problem as the sphinx moth, hawk moth or tobacco worm is the only real pest that I will have to look out for, and is a cousin to the tomato worm if you don’t want to touch them use gloves or pliers.  One site I researched stated the water used to soak the tobacco stalks in could then be used to spray on the new tobacco plants as an insect repellent. I’ve already found sites on the Internet that sell tobacco seeds at a reasonably good cost.  You can even grow tobacco as an ornamental plant in your garden, so its back to the old row tiller, shovel and garden if I want to keep me old smoke stack going strong.

Come visit my new website Gay Vets

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