10 years ago I was homeless

4/2/08

"Just one...How would you like to be out there, on the run?" -Richard Bachman, The Running Man

10 years ago, I was homeless.

I lived on a temporary basis in the Salvation Army trailers in downtown Sacramento. I was under the guise of a double life: returning college student by day, displaced and disenfranchised vagabond by night.

Education is not totally absent among Vagrant Nation. It is estimated that half of the homeless population have at least a high school diploma. As the saying goes, however, "the world is full of educated derelicts."

Like many people who are or have faced homelessness, I am ex-military. Shortly after my discharge in January 1998, my life took a turn for the worse as is common among those who deal with sudden and permanent life changes.

It took me eight more years (and fighting off a host of arduous challenges and issues) to finally go back to school for good, stay there, and graduate and earn my degree. I remember only too well the excruciating pain of inadequacy and inferiority. I still remember the shameful feeling of failure, the loss of self-respect and dignity.

The homeless are systematically and knowingly manipulated, violated, ignored and abused by both the government and "normal" society. This is the most powerful, prosperous, affluent and wealthy nation on earth. This is the greatest country in the world. There is no goddamn reason for anyone here—let alone those who served this country to help keep it free and safe for democracy—to be homeless. There is no justifiable reason for anyone in the U.S. of A. to have to live in poverty without a pot to piss in and a window to throw it out of.

You can take my job, my house, my money, the clothes off my back, strip me of all materialistic accoutrements that deem me worthy in your eyes. Know what? I really don't give a fuck. My self-respect, dignity and validation as a human being and as a person is not for sale. I worked too hard to get it back. My soul isn't willingly being signed over to just anyone or anything. Not any longer.

I for one am not letting this milestone go unnoticed.