Events Control the Man, Rarely the Other Way Around

In today’s society, we make assumptions about people by their appearance and where we meet them. As a society we need to take a look if that is the right thing to do.

Take for example, the case of 37 year old John , a former Military Police Officer in the US Army. Divorced twice with three children a respectable person, if unfortunate in love, most would agree.

A man who loves his children and supports them in all that they do. A man who would help anyone if they simply asked him to.

Now come forward to the year 2000 the same man who is now a resident of the Texas Department of Corrections.

In 2000, John was tried and convicted of Sexual Assault and received a sentence of 60 years with his earliest parole date being April 2031. He has also been disowned by his family and all those he thought cared about him.

Despite this John is a gentle mannered man who accepts his punishment for what he has done and admits that he was wrong.

Quote

(John: June 15^th, 2008)

I did wrong and deserve to be punished. I admit that, but I was not so unsalvageable that society should give up on me.

But what contributed to his crime?

In John’s life there is a long history of abuse and “learned behavior” This is his story. He is not asking for your pity or your sympathy.

Even to this day, John finds it difficult to admit he was abused physically, emotionally and sexually and by the people who were supposed to care about him the most.

John’s Story

Quote:

John June 2008:

I will start from what I see as the beginning for me and I will explain the things that were factors in the choice’s I made. I do not, by any means, blame anyone else. Ultimately I made the choice but there were things that affected the choices I made.

In approximately 1967 John’s parents met. John’s father was 32 years old and his mother was only 15 years old.

Between 1968 and 1970 John’s mother was to give birth to two sons’ neither of whom would live longer than 24 hours.

Then in the early morning hours of December 12^th, 1970 in Kahuku, Hawaii John was born.