Combat Veteran Back Home, and Homeless

October 5, 2011, 12:48 PM
Back Home, and Homeless
By MATT FARWELL

Not too long after that, when my friends in my old unit were rotating back, I started to crack a bit. That year the Taliban killed two of my friends, Staff Sgt. Esau I. DeLaPena-Hernandez, 25, and Sgt. Carlie M. Lee III, 23. The next year a helicopter crash killed my brother, Chief Warrant Officer Gary Marc Farwell. As my last real duty in the Army, I escorted his body home from Germany, wearing a dress uniform and saluting his casket in Atlanta and Salt Lake City as it was loaded and unloaded from the commercial airliner.

Mid-June, 2011: I find myself alone in a dark wooded park tucked between million-dollar houses south of Stanford University, looking for a spot in the bushes to stash my bags. Until that morning I’d been living in a cheap weekly-rate motel in Palo Alto. Before checkout, knowing I couldn’t afford the $48 fee for another night, I laid out my stuff on the bed. Over the cigarette burns on threadbare sheets, I scrounged for quarters, dimes and nickels. There was enough for an extra value meal at Taco Bell. I divided everything else I had between three bags; an olive-drab backpack my brother used in the Army Rangers, a black duffel I bought at Goodwill and a satchel for my laptop.

This was my life. I was two weeks shy of my 28th birthday, unemployed, broke, thousands of miles from my family, watching the weather forecast to see how uncomfortable sleeping outside would be that night. Whatever the prediction, I could handle it. Four and a half years in the Army, including 16 months as an infantryman in eastern Afghanistan, provided plenty of skills with no legal application in the civilian world. It was, however, wonderful preparation for being homeless.
read more here