Glenn Langlois online to search for work leads. (Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff
)
LYNN - Glenn Langlois didn’t expect that decades after taking part in the 1983 invasion of Grenada he would have to sleep in a back alley, or a warehouse, or a patch of woods. The ex-Marine didn’t want to rummage through Salvation Army bins for clothes to keep him warm. He said he never wanted to ask anybody for anything.
“But when you’re homeless, it’s a mess,’’ he said.
For the last two years, Langlois has lived in a rooming house run by the Lynn Shelter Association. But for much of the last decade he was in and out of homeless shelters and living on the streets of Lynn. Now in his late 40s, Langlois said he still hopes to find steady work and an apartment he can call his own. But first, he said, he’s got to do more therapy and find a way to better deal with his post-traumatic stress disorder.
On Veterans Day, he said, he will do the same thing he does every day: cook a meal in his cramped apartment, talk to the other vets in the group home, and put out work feelers on the Internet.
As a boy growing up in Everett, Langlois couldn’t wait to join the Marines. In the military he found the camaraderie and discipline he was always looking for. After his discharge in 1984, he realized he should have stayed.
“You never realize what you have until it’s gone. I loved it,’’ he said. “There you knew where you were, you knew what you were supposed to do, you knew who you could trust. You knew who your friends were. And then you come back here and people have different attitudes about veterans. I remember when I first got out I had people actually curse at me. Why, I don’t know.’’
After his discharge, he quickly got married, had a child, lived in Wakefield and Haverhill, and dreamed about buying a house. But his marriage didn’t last, and he couldn’t find regular work in construction. He focused on carpentry, and in 1993, while building a deck in Revere, fell several stories and broke an ankle, four ribs, a wrist, and an arm.
A year later, with no work and penniless, he stood on the streets of Boston, homeless. Eventually he drifted over to the New England Center for Homeless Veterans and found a bed. He stayed for almost a year.
But after another failed marriage and more work injuries, there were cocaine problems and driving arrests that led to a few years in jail. He ended up homeless again and wandered the downtown streets of Lynn. He slept outside in blizzards, managing to survive nights when the temperature dropped below zero.
After a stint in a homeless shelter, he was referred to the transitional rooming house.
While he no longer has to worry about sleeping on the street, he still considers himself homeless.
“It makes you feel less than,’’ he said. “I was once this gung-ho Marine and now I got nothing. That’s a hell of a leap. I don’t think anybody can really deal with that very easily.
“But you do what you have to do to survive, and I’m never going to give up.’’
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
