Aristotle said "the human is a vast cosmos". I have often wondered just what goes on in the minds of most people. You do not expect the animal life in the lower species to have much empathy for one another. The cow has little affection for the bull, the sow has little affection for the boar and most dogs just thrive in spite of one another. But among homo sapiens, human life, God's chief creation, we expect better than most of us experience or witness. If you have any doubts about this, your newspapers or television sets should educate you.
My aunt Lizzie, sister of my father's mother, one of 12 children never married. She would have been considered a little sickly but the truth of the matter is, after her parents death, her brothers and sisters just did not want to care for her. Aunt Lizzie's problem, in spite of the fact that she was a lovely person, like her other siblings she had been left a large farm by my great grandparents and her siblings wanted that farm since, evidently, then as now, no one has enough. So together they placed Aunt Lizzie in the insane asylum at Dorothy Dix, Raleigh NC.
I was just a small child when my father went by that huge facility, Dorothy Dix, to see his aunt. I have seen horror in the eyes of desperate victims of war. Bedraggled, unkempt she was delighted to see a family member, since no one had visited her for years.
As a 100% disabled, service-connected veteran totally blind for most of my life or at least since the Korean Conflict, I have wondered many times as I have personally experienced the complete apathy of family and former friends who never knock on my door or try to assist me in any way whatsoever. Do they think they are just insulting me or just embarrassing their own country? It does not matter a great deal about me personally as I have learned to live as the apostle Paul said, "whatever comes my way". But it depresses me that those young warriors who are returning from the conflicts of the past years are so treated. In the American experience, the greatest shame of this nation is its treatment of disabled veterans and handicapped citizens. Since I have been very active in religious and political circles in spite of my disability and since I have been a continuous voice on talk radio and from pulpits and other places, one would think that someone would listen in the power structure of this country. I have offered $1000 to anyone who can ever show that any civic club, any veterans group, any church, any social service organization that has ever done one thing for me as just one veteran.
I will never forget the day that two of my cousins whom I had not seen for many years decided to come by and check on me. I took them out to lunch and one wanted to go to a restaurant which he remembered that he and his deceased wife had enjoyed when they were young. It was on the resort island of Wrightsville Beach, NC. I am generous when I say we received almost NO service. I was told by one of the owners when I called about the service that "we do not want disabled people in our business because it makes our other customers feel uncomfortable". This explains why you see so few disabled people in public places; even the church. I went to one church because it was close enough for me to walk (First Baptist Church, Wilmington NC). For many years when I was very generous but never, not the first time, until our blessed Lord told me not to return, did an usher help me find a seat and very few people ever spoke to me.
Most veterans, particularly a retired veteran, such as this writer, receives a citation at the end of active service. My citation, and indeed, the citation of most veterans should read somewhat as follows: CITATION: Thomas Redin Morris, citizen of the United States of America. Born September 17, 1930. Commissioned as a medical officer in the United States Army, 1955.
Because, Lt. Colonel Morris, you overcame the poverty of being born on a tobacco farm in Eastern North Carolina, you attended one public school where your father and grandfather before you had attended. Because you worked hard, behaved yourself and graduated at the top of your class of 13 graduates the county school superintendent (R.S. Proctor) made the necessary arrangements for you to enroll at UNC-Chapel Hill, where you graduated after working your way through school and then went on to Memphis University where you graduated. Carrying a full time academic load yet paying your way through school by working at night and going to school during the day and selling bibles door to door each summer month for 8 years. After being commissioned a First LT in the US Army, you attended schooling and internship at Fort Sam, Houston, Texas and then served as an army medical officer for a total of 13 years before service connected blindness caused your retirement.
In Washington DC, before an army retirement group, you were told that the army would care for you but, it was easy to find out that the most inept department in US Government, the Veterans Association, will not do anything for you unless forced to do so. For 30 years, instead of getting housing adaptation protection I nightly place cement blocks against the inside of my exterior doors so I would have a chance of trying to get help. Twice in one year and many time since, landlines to my telephones have been cut and other illegalities, too numerous to mention, have occurred. I never have had one minute of rehabilitation so that I could better adapt to living the blind life. On this present day, I have been waiting 2 months for meds which the VA Pharmacy should have sent. From talking with other veterans and most of us refuse to gripe because we know full well that much better men than us never came home and are buried on foreign soil.
It makes sense in this time of little sanity, that all disabled veterans should be placed in federal prisons where they can get the care that the lawbreakers get. The food in prison is bound to be better than the food I prepare for myself. The clothing in prison I would not have to wash myself and a man of my education should be able to do some job in prison that is less work than it takes for me to survive on my own. This concludes the citation which should be adopted by the congress and promoted by veterans groups and certainly and most ungrateful public.
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