By Kreg . . .
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My name is Kreg w I am a father of 6, a husband, a veteran and a broken man. I lived for the Army at one point in my life. It was my anchor and I honestly believed my purpose. I enlisted knowing I was going to war and I did. I spent at war for 26 months in oif/oef proudly for my country. I served to build something solid for myself, and future family for years, I wore my uniform like it was part of me with a sense of pride—until everything unraveled in one day. I was accused and found guilty of “wrongful sexual contact”. A misdemeanor charge that hit me like a mortar round. It was a soldier, twice my age and twice my size that I had zero interest in, in anyway other than work. that day was April fools day and a day that changed my life and bettered her own with a single accusation. She used me because of my medical condition at the time, i was also in warrior transition battalion (medical unit) as she was too for unknown reason by me still to this day. She was on her way out of the military with nothing but a basic discharge. she knew she would receive A 100% disabled veteran rating for “sexual assault survivor” and she did. I couldn’t fight that battle. I had an inadequate JAG lawyer that coerced me to plead guilty with threats of dishonorable discharge as well as 5 years in Leavenworth prison. I plead guilty, received a general (under honorable) I now see I was not represented with proper council because of the fall out and post discharge court experiences. I was guilty before i even went to court. The ruling was this tangled mess I couldn’t untangle but still, the judge gave me a good discharge and insisted i appeal. I didnt even know what an appeal was. I was an ignorant 24 year old kid. I didn’t understand what I was up against, and I let it slip through my fingers. They told me I was supposed to register as a sex offender unknowingly after discharge. It was a shock of a lifetime. I was told it was done. Registration was never mentioned to me. Ive never even heard of the registry. But i did register as a teir 1 sex offender. I was told to register for 10 years, once a year around my birthday. It’s been 15 years now, and I’m still on that list. I want help getting off of it—finally putting this behind me. After the Army, I fell apart. For three years, I was a homeless veteran, a shadow drifting through a world that didn’t want me. A shell of the man i was and absolutely nothing i wanted to be. I got categorized as a social pariah. I slept wherever I could—shelters wouldn’t have me, benches were for “regular” homeless people, so I found shelter under bridges, in vacant houses, and in the back of my girlfriends (future wife) tahoe and she bought me a tent! She fed me, clothed me. She looked past my prior convictions because she new i was a good person. But i carried the weight of my past like a rucksack full of stones. Literally walking day in and day out everywhere i went. Depression sank its claws into me, deep and relentlessly. I didn’t recognize myself anymore. Everyone I’d known turned their backs, family, “freinds” employers would hire me. Tell me im the best they got. And then fire me after finding out im on the registry.(application asks if your a felon) only… im not. But I couldn’t blame them. My life was a wreck. Then the VA threw me a rope. After fighting tooth and nail, I received a rating of 100% disability—a stamp that said my struggles I’ve dealt with for years were real. It wasn’t a fix, but it was something to hold onto. It got me out of my tent and out of homelessness but Still, I couldn’t outrun my demons. In 38 months, I racked up four DUIs—stupid, reckless mistakes that came from chasing numbness in a bottle. Each one dug the hole deeper, but I couldn’t stop. One night i got a domestic violence charge x3 (against wife, but 2 kids were there also) it was non physical, but still embarrassing, Through all that mess, one that one woman that sees who I am stayed. She saw me—the real me, buried under the wreckage—and she didn’t flinch. We got married in 2014 and I still don’t know how I got that lucky. She brought her three kids into my life, and I stepped up to raise them like they were my own.(I’m now a grandfather, i go by doo-da) It wasn’t easy, but it gave me something to fight for. Later, in 2015 and 2018 we had two more together—those pieces of us that felt like a fresh start. Everyone else shunned me, wrote me off as a lost cause, a pervert, a threat to society, without knowing the story. My name on the registry is all they needed. But in my little family we built, I found my footing. The road’s been hell—full of regrets and hard lessons—but it brought me here. To a home ive been in for 8 years now in middle Tennessee. Its honestly a life I never thought I’d have again. Now, after 15 years of carrying this sex offender label—five years longer than I was supposed to— standing here today somehow, as a non-felon. I’m ready to shake it off for good. I need help to make that happen, to finally close this chapter. Lately, I’ve been thinking about doing a tell-all on a YouTube channel—laying it all out there, raw and real. I’ve got one hell of a “protect yourself at all cost” story that’s been bottled up too long, and maybe sharing it could help someone else. Or maybe it’ll just help me. Either way, I’d like some advice on how to go about it—how to tell it right and handle whatever comes after.
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