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Requiem for a Patriot

By Jacque Ritchie

The difference between being a patriot and a criminal is a very fine line. Our founding fathers could have been hung for treason, for doing what we now consider patriotic.
-Fred MacDonald (1960-2006)

On October 10, 2006 Fred MacDonald, 46, was killed while riding his Harley Davidson Electra-Glide through rush-hour traffic in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The driver of the Ford Explorer did not see MacDonald and was not cited.
MacDonald’s passing may seem like collateral roadside damage to the casual observer, another random biker gone, hardly worth the solemn tsk-tsk of the 10-oclock news anchor.

But MacDonald’s life was far from typical and his passing was actually a rare metaphor for the unsung life of an incidental hero.
As it would happen, MacDonald was on a mission of mercy at the time of his death. He was returning from delivering medication to 61-year-old Essie DeBonet.

“My life has become degrees of nausea” Debonet said. Beset but unbeaten, AIDS has left DeBonet a frail 100 pounds.
DeBonet struggled to maintain her composure as she spoke about her friend MacDonald, “He is the reason I am alive today.” DeBonet went on to quote:

Jesus said; “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”  (John 13:15)

According to DeBonet the medical marijuana MacDonald supplied her with, relieved the nausea to the point that she could eat and actually hold down sustenance.

“Fred would make the most delicious pasta ricotta” she said her voice flavored with a dash of Brooklyn bada-bing.
When DeBonet was at her most fragile, weighing in at only 85 pounds, MacDonald would spoon-feed her homemade delicacies, all the while encouraging DeBonet to take heart and live on.

In an interview conducted only a month before his untimely death MacDonald details the life and times of a rebel with a cause:
Born in Springfield, Ill. MacDonald was raised the motherless son of an absent father. His mother, Margaret Jane passed away after a long battle with cancer and was laid to rest on his ninth birthday.

MacDonald and his older sister, Darlene, were placed in the care of Uncle Charlie and Granny Sadie, who taught her young charges, “You are as good, but no better, than anyone else in this world.”

Good Scottish tenacity saw the MacDonald clan through as they worked several Missouri family farms. There they raised chickens, pigs, corn, sorghum, and soy bean. MacDonald recalled this time in his life fondly, saying that the honest, determination he had learned at his grandma’s knee inspired and sustained him through his life.

When he came of age, MacDonald left the farm and studied political science at Missouri Western State University where he played football as a fighting Griffon, “I was only six-foot tall and weighed 200 pounds, and I played defensive end.” Evidently, size is a mitigating factor in football, “I blew out my left knee” MacDonald explained.

His collegiate career effectively ended, MacDonald turned to the military. There he endured 52 weeks of training to achieve Navy SEAL status. MacDonald’s specialty was under-water demolition. Here seal team members don scuba gear and tamper with large metal spheres typically packed with highly explosive material.

While attached to SEAL Team 4 MacDonald said he rose to the rank of chief petty officer receiving an E-7 rating.
Then in 1984, while the team was disarming a mine submerged in the Indian Ocean, MacDonald’s life took a violent turn.
“I was injured in 1984 off the coast of Lebanon. We were in Omar Kadhafi’s Line of Death, the last thing I remember was thinking, ‘I got to get the hell out of here.’ I knew shit was going to happen bad because I could see the shock-wave in the water…all these bubbles coming.”

According to MacDonald seven men were in the water at the time of the explosion and only three survived.
The coma lasted two weeks followed by two years in-and-out of the hospital during which time MacDonald underwent several surgical procedures and months of painful rehabilitation to rebuild his devastated body.
Doctors at the Veterans Administration hospital told MacDonald he would most likely never walk again. Still MacDonald said he considered himself, “pretty lucky.”

 
The blast resulted in coma but no measurable brain damage. MacDonald’s neck was bent but not broken and despite multiple internal injuries and a shattered left leg, he was not paralyzed.

Granted medical retirement from the service in 1986, MacDonald became involved in competitive wheelchair racing. His success on the 36 city racing circuit attracted sponsors including Shadow Wheelchair and the Paralyzed Veterans of America.
By 1991 MacDonald was an internationally ranked chair racer.

In a private man-against-the mountain challenge, MacDonald once traversed the winding switchbacks to the 10,678-foot crest of Sandia Peak east of Albuquerque.

“I don’t remember exactly how long it took to get up there…It was a lot quicker coming down. There was a couple of times when I didn’t know i I was going to make the corner. That’s when you have to lean into it and keep the faith,” he said.

Using wheelchairs specially designed for competition, racers can reach speeds in excess of 30 mph on the downhill, while MacDonald reported that the uphill portions of the course are more about, “strength, endurance and street smarts.”
MacDonald went on to design an arm-powered reclining bicycle he called the Rock and Roll Fun Machine. “What’s good is the people that have lost use of their legs but still keep the blood flowing in their legs have a much better chance of not developing atrophy.”

MacDonald eventually sold his design and enjoyed both economic and personal satisfaction from the endeavor.
Once again MacDonald defied the odds by not only walking again but, with the help of a sturdy leg brace he could balance and ride any one of his several 750-pound motorcycles.

He went on to develop lasting relationships with individuals and groups within the motorcycle community. In Albuquerque he became active in the New Mexico Confederation of Clubs.

When asked about his ties to the Bandidos M.C., MacDonald said, he never felt the desire to prospect or become a patchholder the group respected him and he enjoyed camaraderie with them that few outsiders experience. He said of the Bandidos, “They are my friends. It’s all about God, family, friends and brotherhood.”

The willingness with which our young people
Are likely to serve in any war no matter how
Justified, shall be directly proportioned to
How they perceive the veterans of earlier wars
Were treated and appreciated by their nation.
-George Washington

MacDonald said he knew in 2002, “Something was wrong with my liver.”
 

In 2004 he suffered through the first bout of severe illness due to advanced liver disease. MacDonald was diagnosed with Hepatitis C that he said the Veterans Administration admitted he had contracted through tainted blood products given him during at least one of the many transfusions or surgical procedures he underwent 22 years before. He was also diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, a disorder that medical experts now believe, can be caused or aggravated by the same sort of injuries MacDonald suffered during his Gulf War service.

 
In addition MacDonald found out that some of the treatments he had received during his recovery further aggravated these conditions, “The steroids they had me on, only screwed up my liver and kidneys more. In my case the meds caused other conditions.”
At the time of this interview MacDonald was angry, “The VA can kiss my ass” he said. He believed that his doctors at the VA not only knew of his condition long before he was informed, but he was denied early treatment that could have added years to his life, “I didn’t even find out until I was almost dead” he said “The VA took care of my skeletal injuries very well, as far as my internal organs they did not care until it was too late.”

Because of the MS MacDonald was told he was ineligible for a liver transplant and his name would not be added to the national list. Mac Donald strongly believed that his use of medical marijuana and the fact that he was a biker was a factor in the VA’s decision, “It doesn’t matter if I got sick legitimately as a result of my service…because I am what they call a domestic terrorist, they got no help for someone like me.”

According to MacDonald the VA offered him no medical solutions, “There were none, no options. They just said, ‘you’ve got five years. Get used to it and put your house in order.’”
Unwilling as ever to accept defeat, MacDonald sought relief in the form of holistic medicine. After researching several different alternative medical venues MacDonald visited the Whole Life Clinic in Santa Fe. When MacDonald asked the VA if they would help cover the cost of treatment .he was denied, “They (VA) warned me to stay away from any kind of herbal remedy, they told me there was no proof that it would work.”

Throughout his life MacDonald never strayed far from the political inclinations of his youth. While living in Seattle, Washington, MacDonald was instrumental in passing one of the countries first medical marijuana laws. Measure 692 was passed with 59 percent of the vote on November 3. 1998. This bill decriminalized possession and consumption of marijuana by a select medically affected portion of the population.

More recently while in New Mexico MacDonald spent most of his free time actively lobbying to change legislation to benefit disabled veterans and other Americans who seek to find medical relief outside traditional means.

In recent years MacDonald could be found roaming the hallways of the roundhouse in Santa Fe lobbying lawmakers to garner their support for Senate Bill 258 (sponsored by Sen. Cisco McSorley (D) Alb.) McSorley said, “All it (SB258) does is tell a small number of medical patients they will not be prosecuted for using pot.”

MacDonald was very vocal on this issue, “Medical marijuana is not about smoking it it’s about ingesting it in different ways suitable to each patient.”

While living in Washington, MacDonald received a license to grow and distribute marijuana to a number of patients living with cancer, AIDS, glaucoma and several other conditions. Ironically, MacDonald found marijuana helpful in his own medical situation, he laughed when he said, “Funny thing is pot is the only relief I have found.”

The life of Fred MacDonald is the stuff of Hollywood epic if not American dream. MacDonald’s determination led him from the farm to the college football field then to unsung war-hero status. An internationally ranked athlete, MacDonald parlayed his experience into lucrative invention and political activism. MacDonald was a remarkable human being who lived an extraordinary life. He valued friendship and was an honest ally and considered a brother to those that knew him well.

Fred MacDonald was an advocate, an activist and a true patriot who refused to compromise his beliefs. Those who knew him will remember him well and often