"We were train wrecks for different reasons, so we were perfect for each other.

" by Dan Abshear (for henrymakow.com) About two years ago, my then wife of 20 years decided to falsely accuse me of vi olently abusing her. A restraining order was issued against me by her as well, so I was evicted out of my own home. Soon after that, I was arrested related to these false accusations and wrongfully incarcerated for over a month. While in jail, I spoke with quite a few men who were abused by the family law sy stem. Most shocking to me at the time were those men on their way to prison for failure to pay child support. Most of these men were without income, yet they were convicted of this 'crime." In April of last year, I spent a week on the mental health ward of the veterans administration hospital in Atlanta, for suicidal ideation, among other mental is sues. They determined I was a drug addict, so I checked myself into the veteran s administration substance abuse treatment program in May of last year. After completing the VA substance abuse treatment program, I was homeless once a gain. The VA has a homeless program for veterans, so I entered this program. T hey placed me in an apartment with 5 other men, whose lives had been wrecked, as mine had been only two years ago. Most of the men I encountered and became friends within the VA system were very poor, and older black men. It's a subculture I was completely unaware of, until this program. Many had spent a great deal of their lives incarcerated, and man y were drug addicts. However, most of these men are very intelligent, and kinde r than your average American citizen. In less than a year, three of these friends I acquired took their own lives. Th eir pain quite obviously was equal or greater than the pain I continue to experi ence due to being destroyed by my ex wife. I continue to miss these friends. Last Summer, while in this VA homeless gh the program with me. We were train e perfect for each other. Like me, she s homeless, like me, but for different program, I met a veteran girl going throu wrecks for different reasons and therefor is not very attractive, physically, and i reasons.

This girl, like many of us, has been abused, physically and otherwise, for most of her life. She never had a decent lover/boyfriend, she tells me. I care for her unintentionally in various ways, and she thinks the world of such acts I may do for her. That does it for me- loving and caring for another girl authentica lly. That completes me. Most men have been programmed to view women, and their roles in our lives potentially, unrealistically. The VA also has a program for unemployed veterans to work at their hospital for a period of 6 months, tax free. It's under the table money, which this girl and I both desperately needed. So throughout last winter, she and I both worked in this program, and saved a few thousand dollars between us. During that time, a man I met online in Indiana offered his farm house to us the re. Since our time in the homeless program with the VA was soon ending, we took him up on his offer. This is now were we currently live, with this man in Indi ana. We have no idea what tomorrow will bring us. We live day by day here, as we did with the VA homeless program in Atlanta. But we have greater peace now. We ha

ve greater freedom. And most importantly, we have each other. It makes each da y worthwhile. Without each other, our lives were vacant, I believe. Our live o ur void of any desirable future- without each other. It's that way with most ho meless people, I've discovered. They are alone. Completely alone. This girl a nd I- we have hope. And hope is a very good thing in the human life always. --The veteran's administration was very good for me in a number of ways. Their ho spital was top notch, I felt, as a patient there. I continued to receive mental health therapy from them once discharged from their hospital. As a former pati ent caregiver myself, I found the caregivers associated with that hospital excep tionable. I found the substance abuse treatment I received from them quite interesting, wh ich lasted several weeks. My undergrad from college is in behavioral sciences, so I was only aware of such programs from that knowledge only, before entering t his program. They spoke of free will frequently during our daily group sessions- virtually ig noring the biological basis for addiction. That would be the only complaint I h ave of such a program. Well, that and their insistence that some God can replac e our addictions. PLEASE............. I'm also thankful for the VA homeless program, which gave me a roof over my for several months. They never really helped me get a job, however. Yet, insisted I somehow find a job immediately, or they would soon discharge me the homeless program. These threats were tacit and frequent. This is why more comfortable here, with my friend in Indiana, with a place to live. head they from it's

But the people I met in the homeless program often relieved my pain by providing a unique relationship with each of them. Such friends were African American ma les, mostly. I'm clearly white, yet they fully accepted me, as I did them. Our backgrounds were overtly different from vocational and domestic paradigms, b ut our similarities, aside from being veterans, such as kindness and intelligenc e, is what drew us to each other during our daily lives in this program, with th ese men. My girlfriend, who most have ignored throughout her life, I feel, is one of the most intelligent and righteous humans that exist. After the nightmares I have w ith past relationships women, my ex wife in particular, this girlfriend is quite refreshing for me. Like me, she's a bit socially awkward. But then again, those few people that ha ve existed that have been remotely like her have usually been ostracized by soci ety for such reasons. We've known each other for about a year, my girlfriend and I, but we made love f or the first time only recently. It was amazing, making love with her- and during a thunderstorm that was occurri ng at the same time. I felt something during this night I can only describe as spiritual with her, which I had never felt with a woman, before making love with her this night. It's my firm belief that people enter our lives for rather clear reasons, once e xamined. My girlfriend illustrates this belief.