This letter is from one of you, a campaign supporter. Bill Bradley is a retired U.S. veteran, now a Lutheran Franciscan volunteer.

Dear Christopher,

I am a widowed, retired, and very concerned Postulant in the Order of Lutheran Franciscans, serving as a volunteer in the opioid-wracked state of West Virginia. As a 14 year veteran of the US Army, and a three-decade veteran of 12 Step recovery, I have witnessed life from many angles. Spiritual and secular. Good and bad. War and peace.

During the Gulf War, I was a combat engineer. We went ahead of the ground invasion from Saudi Arabia to destroy the minefields left by Saddam Hussein’s forces.

After my service, I got a great job with DuPont, a family, a home…and developed kidney stones. I was prescribed oxycodone, and I got hooked.

I lost my job, my wife, my kids, my home — everything. I ended up homeless, consumed by my addiction to oxycodone and heroin.

The VA rescued me, and placed me in a homeless program. I got on medication-assisted addiction treatment, got clean 10 years ago, worked my way out of the shelter, got a job, and married again.

I’m now a Franciscan friar, focused on helping vets in my small-town West Virginia community heal from addiction. We have a full-blown crisis going on. And it’s not just a physical addiction crisis — it’s a spiritual crisis. Some towns look like ghost towns with hollowed-out zombies walking around from all the addiction.

As a Franciscan, one of our tenets is an end to war. I believe ending homelessness and addiction is an internal step toward ending war. That’s why Marianne’s proposed U.S. Department of Peace speaks deeply to me.  

I’ve been on both sides. I was in the war machine, and now I’m in the peace machine. All of us supporting Marianne are part of the peace machine. We so desperately need this in our nation.  

The ONLY solution for our country must be a spiritual solution. There are NO other possible solutions. Marianne is the only candidate with that solution.  

Bill Bradley
Fairmont, West Virginia

p.s. Note from campaign team: What's your story about why you support Marianne? Please reply to this email or send to [email protected].

p.p.s. We need your help TODAY. Please donate toward our $1M goal.

If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately.