John Mulligan

Diagnoses

Vocation

Lifestyle

Traits

Scottish-American writer, the author of "Shopping Cart Soldiers," a autobiographical story about the inhumanity of war and its aftermath. His work is described as searing, revelatory, absolutely original. Mulligan left Scotland in 1966 when his family emigrated from Kirkintilloch to America. Soon after the move, he was delighted to find himself drafted into the U.S. Army, even though to this day he carries a UK passport. In Vietnam, where he was a weather observer, his camp was shelled frequently. He got drunk or stoned to seek comfort in numbness, went joyriding in helicopters or in bombers over Cambodia, and saw his best friend blown apart. His excitement at military service was transformed into horror so debilitating that after the war he traveled a dark journey through severe post traumatic stress disorder. He succumbed to the hopelessness of life on the streets drinking cheap vodka in city parks and sleeping under bushes. His book, that came out of his pain, uses Celtic and Asian mythology to dramatize the tale of Finn MacDonald, who experiences what Mulligan believes happens to all those who are traumatized - his soul fled his body. Mulligan claims that a third of America's homeless, some 275,000 people, are Vietnam veterans. Another half of those who fought are drug addicts and some 160,000 have committed suicide. Link to Wikipedia biography