Mr. Thompson:

Thank you for your responses. Please accept my apology for the delay in responding to your last email.  I have been undergoing immense spiritual reflection and life evaluation.  I tried finding you on Facebook, but I decided to leave Facebook yesterday.  In this moment I feel choosing isolation is less painful than enduring it.  I am very grateful for our communications and for the communications I have had with Mayor Ladehoff and all City of Marshalltown, IA and Marshall County, IA leadership.  You all are all I have right now.  I think the internal damage I feel stems from significant, long-term isolation resulting from actions I have experienced and historically reported across Iowa, compounded by my situation when I retired from the United States Navy.

I am currently working on an extensive training program to rebuild my health so I can continue the public records investigative work I have organized for the last several years to protect others from what I have experienced.

During the last 8 – 12 months I developed a friendship with someone who helped me feel alive again for the first time in a very long time (9 years).  This person helped me feel love, forgiveness, hope, and many things within my heart that made me want to forgive and be a part of this community and my home.  I do not regret that choice at all because you all represent my home and people with whom I would rather have friendships and chivalrous discussions about how we can be a better community.

I am preparing a public records research project with the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services to collect data on the current status of mental health services provided in the State of Iowa. When I moved back to Marshalltown, IA, I was in very critical shape.  Tiffany Beadle and Suzanne Reed helped me get to where I am now.  At the same time, they are currently helping me navigate what feels like a state of eternal loss and isolation and evidence supporting the VA’s failures to provide proper mental health care.  I am committed to working to defend the future of MPACT.  The state of my life and everything I have endured is documented in public records stored and preserved across the State of Iowa as well as in the Iowa Press.  I would not be here right now if it were not for the compassion, professionalism, and clinical support of these professionals. I strongly feel that Tiffany Beadle, Suzanne Reed, and Riley Robinson are as critical to modern law enforcement as all the new technological toys evidence supports that State of Iowa government bodies seem to be procuring in recent years (U.S. military surplus vehicles and gear, drones, surveillance software and services, and agreements with commercial information system providers that may allow the circumvention of 4th Amendment rights).

My logic:  If we have the fiscal resources to procure this vast quantity of tactical equipment to arrest human life, should we not also have the capacity and more importantly the responsibility regarding funding to invest in professionals who assist and save human life.

I respectfully submit that seeking and depending on grant funding to support the future viability of the City of Marshalltown’s MPACT team is inadequate.  We need to determine exactly who we are and what we stand for as leaders and human beings, and take ownership of the cost to fund this critical program that I believe is the future of law enforcement.  Law enforcement should not merely be a paradigm of arresting humanity; it should be a paradigm of protecting and serving humanity.

The Form of the Fortress of Solitude

I do not believe God will allow me to find peace in my life until I have completed my journey through the wilderness and the mission He has put in front of me.  I will not fail.  His will be done.

The Form of the Spiritual Lighthouse

The form of our hearts is not only revealed by the love, care, and grace we provide to those who choose to share a path in life with us, but also by the love, care, and grace we offer those who are there for us, yet reveal they must remain on their own path.

The full multi-dimensional depth of our feelings for someone is not revealed when someone chooses what we desire. It is revealed by how we adjust our love, care, and grace to comfort them where they have communicated they are in their life.

If we fail to offer love, care, and grace to those who are there for us regardless of the path they are on, we provide evidence that the form of our heart is nothing more than a paradigm of transactional care offered only to those who join us where we are in our lives.

One of the most spiritually humbling moments of my life was when I revealed how deeply I felt for someone and they communicated they could not join me there, but that they still desired to be a lighthouse for my soul from where they stood.  

In that moment I realized I could head back out to sea and continue my mission knowing that when I looked and saw her light, I would remember that I am never alone.https://pyreharbor.net/pyrebird/2026/05/23/the-form-of-the-spiritual-lighthouse/

#veteran

#investigator

#judicial

#bladerunner

Respectfully,

Michael J. Merritt, USN (Ret.)

Founder:  Pyre Harbor

Writer/Musician

Information Systems Manager/Engineer

Information Warfare Specialist – OSINT

2510 S 6TH ST D24

Marshalltown, IA 50158

cipher.hunter@pyreharbor.net

Matrix

pyreharbor.net

jzordpdtksrv35jkfde5oqatv6j5oq4jztmxwndbp4g6kitdixaf6lyd.onion

“The study of ethics is a pursuit of understanding the philosophical nature of right and wrong in its most perfect form. A society’s justice system is an ever-evolving pursuit of that perfection. Corruption is the cultural, political, or personal bias that overrules and interferes with that system.”  Perfection, Flaws, and Corruption

Legal Disclaimer:  Pyre Harbor (2026-00000784), Cipher Hunter (2026-00000785), Pyrebird (2026-00000787), Pyrewolf (2026-00000786), and Mirebird (2026-00000783) are registered trade names in Marshall County, IA.