Editor's note: This is the first in a series about local veterans and their concerns about the medical care they receive through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

James "Doc" Adamonis is a 35-year-old U.S. Navy combat veteran, who is so damaged by his tours in Iraq, Kuwait and Guantanamo Bay, that suicide is a daily consideration.

"I wake up every day," he said through tears, "and don't know if I'm going to make it through the day."

Adamonis recently spoke with Seacoast Sunday about his fragile post-military state — over country music and a couple of Coronas — in the Portsmouth Veterans of Foreign Wars hall. Like veterans across the country, he said the mental health and medical care he receives from the Department of Veterans Affairs is not helping and may be hurting him.

He said he served as a "Corpsman," a medic who goes into combat with the Marines to patch up wounded Americans, as well as their enemies. At Guantanamo Bay, Adamonis said, Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners of war were given "better health care than we give our own people." As a military medical provider to the enemy, he said, he once assisted with an elective surgery, the removal of fat, on a prisoner of war.

He recalled that imprisoned terrorists under his watch tried suicide and that 17 times he stopped it from occurring.

"I didn't let them die," he said. "That's my job. A corpsman takes a Hippocratic Oath. It doesn't matter who it is."

In return, he said, enemy prisoners at "Gitmo," threw their excrement, urine and semen at him. At times, these fluids landed on his face.

"And the most they gave us out there were TB shots," he said.

Adamonis said he was stationed in Newport, Rhode Island, from where he was also shipped to Kuwait and Iraq.

"It was a constant toxic zone," he said, explaining he was exposed to ammonia, bodily fluids, gas plants and oil refineries. "I developed headaches and a chronic cough."

When he got out of the Navy in 2007, he said, he also developed post-traumatic stress disorder, irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety, left elbow pain and depression. All of it, he said, contributed to thoughts about ending his life.

"I tried suicide three times," he said.

One of those times, he recalled, his thumb was on the trigger of a shotgun while he spoke with his mother on the phone and she urged him to go to the VA Medical Center in Manchester, where he's required to get his medical care.

"I drove myself to the VA, I was there two hours and they sent me home," he said. "They said, 'Come back tomorrow.'"

Adamonis said he later began seeing a VA psychiatrist and a therapist and has been prescribed seven different medications that he takes twice daily. They include opiates, lithium, Ambien and Prozac. He suspects these medications have contributed to pre-cancerous ulcers in his throat and stomach pain.

His body twitched while he scrolled through a list of his medical problems he has stored on an iPad.

"Even though I'm on medications," Adamonis said, "my rage is still there and my depression is not getting better."

When he speaks about his doctor, Adamonis describes violent things he'd like to do to him. He's asked for another doctor, in vain.

He said he and his mother have written multiple letters to the VA, but nothing changes.

Every year, Adamonis said, he's required to go to the veterans hospital for an examination and a determination of the percentage of disability he has. For example, he said, he's labeled 10 percent disabled due to his headaches, 10 percent for his elbow and so on.

He's currently considered 80 percent disabled, he said, but the numbers have varied and "you get different results from different doctors."

"I can't work because I flip out at people," he said. "And I can't be in crowds I can't even go to a God damn football game anymore."

He lives in his mother's basement and finds some joy riding his Harley Davidson Dyna Superglide as a member of the local chapter of the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Club.

"I have no faith in (the VA hospital), but it's the only medical care I have right now," Adamonis said. "A lot of the physicians are of one mindset and that's that they're going to do the minimal, because they work in a government facility. They can't get fired and they will not lose their jobs."

Poor care at the country's VA hospitals was mentioned during Thursday's Democratic presidential debate at the University of New Hampshire. Hillary Clinton said she'll fix the VA, but not privatize it. Bernie Sanders blamed Republicans for blocking funds that would have improved VA care.

On Saturday, Concerned Veterans for America announced there are "more than 20 million veterans in the United States, many of whom are still having trouble accessing health care."

Adamonis said, "I just want better care so I can get better."

"I think that even if I got off these meds, I would have the same problems," he said. "This is a prime example of the VA medical system."

On the board of the New Hampshire Chapter of Veterans Count, Portsmouth developer Renee Plummer said last week that she'll connect Adamonis with the Vietnam War veterans who also serve on the board and try to get him help.