Kassandra and I had known each other for a month before we married,and have long since divorced in 2007 . I never planned to have a child with her, and the exact date and natural parentage by myself was never fully allowed to be proven one way or another. Less than a month after my return to civilian life, my son was born…. at this time we were both unemployed and I was looking for work when certain parties decided to report this to DHS. I live in the state of Iowa, and any person who has no money for any kind of legal defense in cases like mine is treated as a criminal without recourse. I continued to see my son, as did Kassandra thru supervised visits. While in foster care Kamden developed issues with his resperation, due mostly to the fact that the first temporary foster parents who had been assigned to caring for him during part of the litigation process were nicotine addicts at the very least.
This was held against my case for paternity due to my lack of medical insurance outside of what the Army had previously provided.
I never hurt my son in any way and the only charge that was brought against me were allegations of neglect that were never fully proven, nor was I able to properly defend myself from. There is no legal allowance for visitations or allowances for either blood parent to ever see their children after custody has been terminated.(I nor my wife no longer have any parental rights at this time.)
I would have found a way to provide for my son, but in the process of custody hearings that tore my family’s future in three different directions. Finding an income that would allow me to afford adequate legal defense outside of the public defender appointed to me by the same organization that I was fighting, was nigh impossible. The state leaned to Kassandra to be the primary caregiver, until she failed a routine drug test in the spring of 2006. She signed her rights away shortly after this. I had no paternity DNA test result that linked Kamden to me as a father. The State terminated my rights on its own feeble excuses in 2007.
The court’s main precedence for their decisions to attempt to award rights to Kassandra were solely based on the fact that I was never allowed to legally determine my paternity, despite the fact that I was at the hospital when he was born, and paid child support for him until i had no right to do so… I miss him constantly. Sometimes when I see a child that reminds me of him.. my heart aches knowing that i may never see him again. I have returned to college to expand my job skills, and I have so far have been maintaining a 3.8 GPA. I am majoring in photography and one day I hope that my son and I will be reunited despite the crooked path that has brought me to where i am today. My only hope and comfort is that the mother that cares for him now is morally just and would never do drugs, run around like a cat in heat, or sell out a child’s father for a bi-weekly paycheck. I loved Kamden, and I keep my pictures of him close to me at all times. I had just as much right to be a parent as my wife did, and all the folks who were supposed to be “helping me” were doing is trying to get their quota of involvements in state-sponsored adoptions. When I graduate and pay off my student loans I intend to leave Iowa and begin legal action to regain custody thru the laws of another state. I hope that this will all be possible within the near future.
I feel empty at the thought of not knowing where he is or if he is alive and well. It is September 14, 2009. I pray that I have nothing to fear for, and that this will all work out for the best someday….

signed,

A victim of women’s “rights”