FORTY YEARS

the door to barracks D

Originally uploaded by jayfherron

Today it is 40 years!

It is 0530…it would have been about 3 hours ago. The dream I had last night was like that night…violent-and because I had to pee I woke at 0230,just about the same time. Just exactly the same reason-to pee,except in barracks D I had to pee so badly but had waited for hours out of fear-I had never been in a place like this before. I was so afraid.

I was again woken-40 years ago this morning. I had been knocked unconscience and was laying in a urinal trough-I remember the soreness in my body as I was stirred to by my name being shouted-gruffly…ordered…commanding.

My shirt was wet-that I guess from the dampness of the urinal trough. My pants and boxer shorts in a twisted roll on the floor-I had to look for them. Then I had to try and un-roll them from the knot they became as they were hastily pulled from my body. The pants and boxers became a twisted jumble-the voice calling my name was now perturbed that I was causing a delay in his chore. He was assigned to take me to the investigators office in a building next door.

The investigator was not a ally. He chuckled when he heard my answer to why my face was bloodied and my uniform so askew-wet with piss…my anal area sore and burning.

The investigator told me in a non-concerned manner “Get used to it” and “your dance card has been punched”.

Forty years….I am yet to find a way to get used to it. I am never going to “get used to it”.

if it’s fixed-best broke it

MUH YAT

Originally uploaded by jayfherron

 

 

 

An old saying in the trucking industry about a Cummins engine is-“if it ain’t broke,don’t fix it”!

I really don’t know all of what that means-but heard it so often it stuck.

I do know in my life right now it is the reverse-it seems fixed,and I’m trying to break it. Not trying on purpose,but subconsciously I am ripping out the walls and sinking into a place I cannot control,I call it damage control…which is why it is uncontrollable.

Fucking-A…that’s confusing-aye?

Try to be me once!

Pluxmux…crungeblux…crapmax…CRIXMIX!! It now has past. In five more days there is still more to come-I sense it on faltering knees…on Muh knee’s,oh God…I AM on MY KNEE’S!! (that is what the damage control is-on my knees)

Five more days to new years eve…to 40 years,and six more days to new years day…and seven more days to the return to business….and more days to continue to try to escape it! The memory of who I am and what made me this way. At least-to fuck me up…it chose an easier day than any to remember it-ahhh,but it could have happened ANY TIME,and the memory would still be the same.

At least it will be a good 12 months before this goes and comes again,but as I said-it won’t matter…it always a hard time for me!

My old year is coming to an end-the new year is beginning with the need for toilet paper to clean me off-feeling shit on and hurt….and,hurting myself-yes ‘group’…I ain’t healed yet-if ever,but yet HEELED to my intent to cut myself and burn myself and get myself crapped on and smacked on while ON MY KNEES-one more time!

Why not?

It’s all been a fucking lie…like Sesame Street and all of its costumed teachers-the bird and the cookie thief! Or Satan Claus…oh,[sic] Santa,pardon me! Hello kiddies…let’s pretend-it’s more fun and less realistic TO PRETEND! Then one day you will grow up and be adjusted to the lies of life. TRUST Satan Claus (oh gawd,sorry-Santa) because all you need to do is be good-and good will come to you from Satan!

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So-these past weeks have been torment to me. Things seemed high earlier in the year-looking good,I received compensation from the Veterans Administration for the ‘post traumatic stress disorder’ PTSD I have lived with for (this marks 40) years. A trivial trickle of some money each month-enough to buy a yacht (shown above) and allow me to afford the fee’s to the ‘put-put’ golf course. It was supposed to be something considered ‘VALIDATION’!! but…fact is, I AM STILL BROKEN!

Validation?

Validation?

What in the entire FUCK of it ALL is validated????

I still seek being hurt! It is the only way to discover that it is real…the hard hands on your body-they say that it is real…the strength in the pain they offer….they VALIDATE that it is REAL! THE PAIN…gawddamned right-IT IS REAL!!! You CAN feel it, it is real. It ain’t pretend-make believe-satan claus…merry merry crixmix!

MERRY CRIXMIX…the shiney teeth liars speak in an attempt to be cheerful…and rightous!

So…here is VALIDATION!

One year ago a judge decides to ‘validate’ that the RAPES HAPPENED!

The year ends by my seeing my first and only believer-SNEAK AWAY from seeing me or saying hello…or,VALIDATING my presence.

Then the year ends by the Veterans Administration writing saying they need to VALIDATE my case…that it seems my disability might be healed!!

HEALED???? My disability is ‘temporary’….the horror of the dreams of prison-they are probably improving,and the fact that I might have smiled about something-makes me better? The fact that I torture myself-anyway…and still,oh yes-I am getting better. I want to CUT MY THROAT!! Because of the SICK that I AM …..and from what happened to me CRIXMIX season (happy happy-jolly jolly) 40 years ago. Healed? How in the mother fuck is that? I ask?

I wish there could have been an audience the eve of crixmix! They’d of said-“look at this sick fuck!!”

And then-there is validation. What a CROCK!

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It must be why they do this lie thing about Satan Claus to us as kiddies! To get us adjusted to how we are lied to as adults-and deceived. Kind of a tough love message to begin lying to our little ones at age 2 and 3 and a little older…and Jimmy or a Nancy comes along and says to your soon to be 10 year old “There’s no such thing as an Easter Bunny….Santa ain’t real”! And the lie trys to stay alive as the frantic parents pleads “No…no no-Jimmy and Nancy just made that up”!! It is no wonder anyway why kids dont’ believe in JESUS hardly any more-after the major lies are busted (easter bunny and satan nicky) how’s it going to be easy to convince?

I tried to believe! I thought the way I was brought up-American Flag and Apple Pie and DEFEND The Constitution of the United States (land of the free-one nation UNDER GOD) I went in head first-believing in what I was taught.

I DO believe the BIBLE! I am only a friend to GOD,there really aren’t any others we can trust. IN GOD WE TRUST (you must)
…after all,God is no politician,God IS! But,that’s about it. God is the beauty in death!

Now-how can I believe in the BIBLE? My brother Frank-for one! He sold me into the slave that I am. He did what ever he could to work out his jealousy of me-I must have been in his way…he must not have known I was there to be his brother!

I asked the US Navy to allow me to serve on the same ship with my brother-my brother did not like that-at all.

I believe in the BIBLE. Look at Cain and Able-or the many other examples of brother against brother written in those holy words. How could I not? I am nowhere the majestic story of Joseph and coat of many colors-but never the less, sold out by my own brother.

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I have no belief in anything of flesh anymore!

I was sitting behind the VA last month waiting on a shuttle bus. I had just left my appointment with my therapist (oh….that,I just don’t feel that safe there either) and while sitting a Ford truck drove up-I noticed it because it appeared to have the ‘Harley Davidson’ package dressing up its exterior. Then I looked at the passenger-it was Charlotte,my former therapist. The truck sat there long enough-I know she saw me. They drove away. I’m not too stupid-I walked around the building to see….yes,it was her. I guess she couldn’t say hello.

A summer few back on an August day-A Tuesday,I went to a regular scheduled appointment with Charlotte. The clinic co-ordinator told me she was not in. The next week-he told me the same. The third week I was told not to come back until notified.

I waited THREE months. How many others waited like I did? Clients with PTSD and anxiety issues? How many began to think like I did that Charlotte had heard enough and took her own life? That is what I thought!

Well…what ever the reason turned out to be-it took one tiny moment where someone could have said hello,and DID NOT to break more trust….and cause great doubt in a mentally ill persons mind!

Well…who the fuck cares? It doe not matter anyway-the VA ,it seems,believes PTSD is something temporary and easy to overcome. Rape is a shower away from forgetting it ever happened….and the way I go out of my way to be hurt is in my mind.

What a fucking joke this is-GOD….are YOU LOOKING??

another snow

another snow

Originally uploaded by jayfherron

I’ve been stuck in the snow before. Strange how it seems-this scene in the photograph was on December 25 1997. The weather has no calendar.

Today the papers are filled with the stories of stranded motorist. The Washington (DC) Post had a photo of an empty city on its front page today.  One foot of snow stopped everything.

40 years ago I saw this same thing. I remember being stranded at the Greyhound bus station on New York Avenue in the center of DC. Our bus crept into the station-very late…the snow storm had become one of record in the history books of weather. Everything was shut down.

I mark things by time. I find odd connections to time frames. The exact number of 40 years strikes me-a snow storm the near equivalent of the one I remember comes as if it is some kind of private ceremony from God to me…of course,that is crazy talk from a bothered man-but like the hawk that flew into my house two years ago New Years Eve I see a Spiritual symbol in the way the weather is today.

Yes-far fetched,a “not so” kind of thing…to most. But the way my mind works it certainly is something….mostly because it triggers an emotion and a memory from that night I got stranded in the snow in Washington DC,and-nearly the exact time and date.

I remember Eddie Lachman. I think he was the last person to be kind to me before I ended up in barracks D. Barracks D was the detention barracks that I was taken to…my crime? Being caught in the snow storm is what it amounts to. I was in the Navy and unable to check in on ship because of the storm.

Eddie Lachman plowed his way through the snow covered roads in a VW Beetle driving me home to my parents house in the suburbs.We seemed to be the only car on the road. We met in the lounge that connected through a section of the bus depot. There was not much else to do but get a drink-there was not many others in the lounge,so meeting and chatting with Eddie was not so hard. He insisted on getting me to my destination-a sailor wishing to be home for a holiday

He was an older man-from Holland,a newspaper journalist who covered the White House for his paper.

I became friends with Eddie-briefly,after my discharge and release from barracks D. I visited his home in Georgetown in NorthWest DC. I ate meals cooked by his Vietnamese housekeeper remembering he had told me she once served him his own house-pet for supper. Eddie even sent me money after I fled the DC area and came to Micanopy Florida.

My emotions are sensitive to this time of year! Not like the shopping frenzy of emotions….but the kind from memories that are connected with some event in ones life that becomes imbedded forever. It is a cruelty that lasts-that I can’t ever forget. A little while ago I did my usual in the bathroom-and the usual was there…the damage which instantly strikes a memory which has already been fused by the exact thought I have each morning-now for 40 years. The rape.

Everyday there is something that reminds me.

conflict…

104

Originally uploaded by jayfherron

 

Life is conflict. My dictionary says-prolong fighting;warfare!

I woke this morning and it seemed I was walking and climbing in my sleep. The dreams during my sleep made me fight to keep alive…I was in a prison-and it was as if any of us there were desperate for survival. I woke tired,the dream was that physical.

This shack on the St.Johns River is so far out of the reaches of access-the only way here is by boat. For miles this is the only structure. Could I find peace from myself there? Alone?

My life feels alone. I’ve had to keep so much in. Others have not known the truth about me. Others have known something but not everything. They began to know  only what they concluded might be-but what this was had nothing to do with me.

I found a solitude that was so comforting on the St.Johns back in the early 1990’s when I was first introduced to traveling by motorboat to camp. Along the river are various countless camps-some more up-scale such as the cabin in the photo…there are hundreds such scattered all along the lengths of the river-all so secluded,and unreachable unless by boat.

My first trip up the river sent me into a deja vu with strong Spiritual sensations. In the southern part of the St.Johns the river is wide and tiny grass islands are spread for miles. Something about passing along those islands at slow float takes me back in time. All the time there feels like it is a heavens much as it is a haven.

Conflict? I am very torn about things this time of year. It seems my dreams become more wildly vivid about being locked away. My memories of my time in the Navy become more depressing-the crixmix helps provoke that. Yesterday I visited my son and his family…the crixmix tree that sat in their living room impacted me more. I want to stop going anywhere-the bell ringers at the grocery spout out the cheer shit of the season-everywhere it seems the crixmix  salutation is given. Even my therapist wished me a happy holiday-without thinking.

It is all broken. I have no idea why it happened. I only know it stole almost all what was supposed to be me. I remember the times our family would drive around the hills of our neighborhood and look at the crixmix lights and decorations. It seemed like a special time – I’ve forgotten that it is supposed to be.

I remember always hoping for a white wonderful snow-this for the day of the gifts,that is sort of what made it more special.

I remember a snow did come. I will never forget it.

At age 18-my first holiday away from my family was spent on board ship. I had only been on the ship since that October-we spent Thanksgiving eating the traditional meal…then sat back to watch (of all things) Alice’s Restaurant (I guess because of the Thanksgiving storyline of the film).

I had never been away from home during this time-the holiday of the feast.

We went through Thanksgiving and crixmix on board ship. By we-I mean 2/3’s of the ship. Since we were in home port the ship was divided into 3rd’s for the holidays. Our section was given the New Year weekend,except that year New Years was on a week day,so I had that weekend to spend at home.

It was a crazy idea-it always has been…but there was a bus that made round trips from the base to Washington DC-we called it the ‘liberty bus’ because we were urged to go in uniform to DC,and many did even when there was risk of being late returning to ship. Most time those who showed up late were restricted to remain on ship for two or three days,nothing severe.

I had every night off because I worked in the galley. The Friday night of the New Years weekend was a free night for me too.

I had it in my head that I could extend the weekend….somehow make my holiday a little longer-to make up for missing crixmix (what I have since called Christmas) so I took the liberty bus to DC. My 18 year old mindset was to make a wild dash home and holler “”Happy New Year” and a wild dash back to the return bus and be on time for roll call the next morning. After roll call-I had a three day pass which I had with me as I traveled that night.

It snowed.

The snow began an hour into the trip-and quickly got worse. We crept into Washington and it seemed the bus station was the only place with life-the snow had covered everything and everyone was stranded.

In the bus station-as in the airports and train stations,there was a military travel liason office. I reported there that I was in trouble-showed them my liberty pass and they called the ship. The situation was explained and I was told if I could make it home I was free to go and enjoy my holiday.

I don’t know what happened between time. I know I got a ride home in a VW Beetle driven by a Dutch newspaper writer…Eddie Lachman. He plowed that little car right through the snow and dropped me at my parents door.

I cannot remember exact minutes. I do remember my older brother showing up a day later. We were stationed together-he was not to happy with that arrangement,an idea I got while in boot camp a few months earlier. He was sent to arrest me and take me back to the ship. I learned there some charges were made about drug use. I found myself in a detention barracks that night. The next day was New Years Eve.

I had not peed the entire day. We drove away from our parents house early in the morning-and by the time I entered barracks D it was close to 8:30 in the night. I had to pee.

I had never been incarcerated before then. I found myself holding my bedding-standing in a group of men that appeared to all be rough and undesirable. I had to walk past the crowd thinking what I was just told by the man who gave me my bedding …”welcome to barracks D-Drugs,Drunks,and Degenerates”. He spoke the words as if he was a woman.

In my haste I found a bunk separated away from the other men. I walked past the crowd and kept my self distanced-but instead I drew attention to three who came and surrounded my solitary bunk.

The one spoke to me. Through his nose it sounded-he called me ‘mister’. It was in a very nasal twang with sarcasm and meanness. There were words of threats but quickly ended because they sounded lights out.

“We’ll see you soon,mister” which made me lay there longer than I could ever stand it. I had to pee so badly.

I waited until I thought everyone was sleeping-something like 80 to 100 men.

I made my way to the head (toilet) as quietly as I could.

I got there and as I readied to pee I heard the twang come out of his nose…”hello mister”, and then I was socked in the head. As I went down I could see the man with the womans voice and some others looking at this through a hole in the concrete wall. I don’t know how many times I was hit. I pissed myself and my clothes as my pants and skivvy’s were yanked off.

I was raped.

merry crixmix?

happy new year….?

the real Hero’s

looking at the USS Arizona Memorial

Originally uploaded by jayfherron

I have no words to really intro into this morning…I just want to say-
God Bless America!
December 7,1941

walking to Washington DC?

243

Originally uploaded by jayfherron

Walking to Washington. I did it once before-nearly,when my grandfather in Pottstown (Pennsylvania) died back in 1970 or 71. Lost track.

I hitch-hiked much of the way. Those days it was easy to stand along the roadside and stick the thumb out to catch a ride.

I remember sleeping the first night under an over pass on the interstate. In those days I-95 was sporadic and often the road went through detours . It was not easy travel. The only food I remember eating was raw corn that I picked across a fence in a field along the highway. I remember how thrilled I was years later to learn that Jesus and His disciples did the same thing-gleaning the corn from a field to eat.

I was not allowed to attend the funeral. I arrived at my parents in the suburbs of DC and was expecting to continue to Pottstown to attend Pop-Pop’s funeral. My father refused to take me to Pottstown.

It is a long way by foot and thumb. Now a day that mode of transport is mostly forgotten. I can tell you that the style of it never will.

I want to do it again! I have had the thought in my head for a couple of years. Florida once had a governor that walked from one end of the state to the other to meet voters and earn their respect. It worked-they sent Lawton Chiles to head the state and further on to Washington DC. Why did he walk? To gain attention…they called him ” Walkin’ Lawton “!

I’m not running for any political offices. I am not in that mode of understanding. Politicians give enough of not much to give me that impression. Maybe it is just me-and maybe I need to try to believe one more time.  I do know that if one raises enough hell about something they are listened to a little more carefully. For example-the road out in front of my place. A two mile stretch which is also on a county line. Not one of the counties took responsibility for the road-and over the years it became crowded and worse to drive than any road in Daktari. We raised our voices as a community and the elected could not help hearing us. The road is paved.

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I am having a difficult time writing this. My emotions are shaky much because of the holiday seasons coming up-and my nightmares are beating me lately. I recently was interviewed by a pair of journalists who are compiling the stories of other survivors-survivors of  ‘military sexual trauma’ (MST) and the duration of the two days telling my story have added to the weakness I experience around this time of year.

My holiday in 1969 was when my sexual trauma took place. To be more specific-it was New Years Eve 69-70-it was around 0200,22 hours before the new year began.

The things that took place during that time altered my life forever. For many years I thought I was the only one it ever happened to-but learned what happened to me has happened to others…enough others that it is called MST.

All the series of pages written in this journal explain many things about my life as a male survivor of sexual trauma-rape! I also explain that the reason I came to write all of this is because after 35 years of silence my story came to the attention of our local VA hospital. There I began treatment for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Eventually I was told to apply for veterans benefits- a way of closure and validation.

The man I was required to appeal to made some concerning remarks. They were not only concerning-they were hurtful. This man was to represent me as an advocate regarding something in my life so tattooed in my soul from the pain of what happened in 1969-70,and he was a bigot. I told this person about being raped and he made jocular comments and expected me to see the humor. He could not be in charge of something so serious to me-he had no education and the responsibility of caring for a rape survivor had no business being in his control.

I am nearly tempted from the fatigue of writing to members of Congress and Senators regarding the need for changes in how veterans suffering from MST are treated in respect to the other veterans who have received honorable injuries in the line of duty. Now knowing what I have learned-there are thousands of MST survivors,many who do not know of the rights they have,many who are too frightened to find out. I am nearly tempted to begin a walk towards Washington DC to raise awareness of the crime of MST and the fact that survivors have had their rights violated by the bigotry of the advocates placed to represent them.

I will try to continue this later…