In 1945, as brave American soldiers were battling our enemies overseas, the U.S. Office of War Information was waging a war to win their hearts and minds. They aimed to send a clear message of what was at stake for our nation in World War II.

The American way of life — freedom and democracy, diversity and opportunity — had to be protected, and the support of the American people was critical to the fight. To tell this story, the Office of War Information sent filmmakers to the quintessential American small town, a place that truly espoused our nation’s values — Madison, Indiana. Flash forward 70 years, a different story and a disgraced Madison ,a small town that somehow does not appreciates its own hometown heroes and most often forgets their sacrifice for the community. We neglect one of our own for the sake of greed, corruption, politics and we pretend to be a Best of Communities.

A Madison born and raised, one of our hometown heroes, graduates from our high school, goes off to war to represent his hometown.

Struggling to make it back home to his hometown after the war he finally got back. Still a very young man/boy he somehow did survive the most horrifying events of his life, but he had drastically changed and his world would never seem the same. What he had experienced in combat and on his return to Madison left an inedible mark on him that would never be erased.

He immediately tried to become assimilated back into the hometown culture, discovering that his outlook and feelings about relationships and future life experiences had changed immensely. He was about to travel down a road of mental illness, homelessness, loneliness and neglect from his hometown that he loved so much and fought to preserve.

The combat veteran, many of whom According to the fantasy, all was to be well again when they returned home from the war. The reality for our veteran was quiet different. Although this veteran walked a tormented difficult path his entire life, it was the cold month of February 2015 that literately brought this Marine CPL. to his final end. A Vietnam War combat veteran who had survived the jungles of Vietnam and forty plus years of mental illness and homelessness, life ended on a freezing winter night in his beloved hometown Madison Indiana that 70+ years ago could be considered a city of patriotism (A Best Community). He died alone, resting near his military honorable discharge papers, a couple pieces of clothing hung neatly in a solitary closet in a cold, filthy, and no heat abandoned shack. The veteran lay there, alone, in a chilly blackness until the blood in his heart froze. He died when all warmth had long left his frozen body.

As it usually was for this veteran, he frequently roamed his hometown seeking relief from both the cold and his hunger. He was often the victim of beatings; small town criminals who knew when the veteran received his meager payments for his service to our country beat him and stole his few wages.

He was hospitalize for head injuries on a few occasions but more often than not his biggest health challenge was the chaotic mix of mental illnesses - schizophrenia, depression and PTSD. He drank too much when paranoid demons consumed his confused mind. Many times he couldn't settle thoughts of violence, death and sorrow that raged through long ago memories in the war torn jungles of Vietnam. His hometown neglected him and left him to the wolves of his nightmares. He was known to grieve, to cry, to weep and to sometimes break under the depression that often left him with no choice but to end his time on this earth. Our hometown "stakeholders" as they call themselves have it all wrong. We are not one of “Americas Best Communities” ! We here in a once proud Madison fall into the category of “Americas Worst Communities".
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