I knew a boy who relished the thought of going to war. Growing up, he was inspired by movies like ‘The Green Berets’ and ‘The Gallant Hours,’ used to run outside after watching them and storm his father’s tool shed with his plastic machine gun and toy helmet, pretending it was a pillbox that had to be destroyed.

The problem was when he graduated from high school there were no wars to be fought, so he applied for, and was granted, the position of deputy sheriff for a small town in western Kansas. It didn’t last long. Two years later he was charged with prisoner abuse and dereliction of duty and fired. He told me it was the lowest point in his life. Following that he drifted in and out of jobs, trying to find something that mattered.

Then the Iraq War began and everything changed. For the first time in a long time he was filled with optimism, and I was amazed at the change in him. He enlisted and was sent to Fort Sill for training, shipped out three months later. Not long after arriving in Afghanistan the convoy he was traveling in was ambushed, and he watched, terrified, as rockets, bullets, and shrapnel decimated the Humvee he was riding in along with everyone else inside. When he awoke, he found himself lying in the sand, spattered with the remains of his fellow soldiers. He was unharmed physically, but incapacitated emotionally. Doctors diagnosed him with severe PTSD, and he was discharged.

Now he spends his days at the VA Center near his hometown making jewelry out of glass beads, pieces of wood, and polished rocks. I make it out to see him when I can.
Six months ago I sat across from him while he crafted a bracelet out of some copper wire, tiger’s eye, and a pair of pliers. His hands began to shake, and he dropped it all on the table. “You have no idea the hell I went through,” he said.
For some reason, I don’t know why, his comment annoyed me, and I said, “But I thought that’s what you always wanted, wasn’t it, Glen? To go to war and fight?”
He slammed his fists on the table, erupted from his chair, and leaned within inches of my face. “You know what I hate most about you?” he snarled. “You always talk big, but you don’t know shit about life.” Just as suddenly his face grew pale, and he collapsed back into his chair.

I left several minutes later, glancing back as I walked out the door. He was muttering, attempting to thread glass beads onto the wire. Maybe when it was finished he’d sell it or give to a friend, a doctor or nurse who’d helped him when he needed it most, or another veteran who could empathize with all he’d been through, someone who understood his pain and anger, a person who could help him make sense of war and why it did to him what it’s done to so many. Someone other than me.