On a trip last year, I had the opportunity to speak with an older hotel manager who noticed my Operation Ward 57 t-shirt. He was surprised to find that a young person - and a woman, to boot - would want to know anything about the ways in which war affects those who fight. Unbidden, he told me his own story, and it will always resonate with me. When his war came, this man said he knew that killing his enemy was righteous, and it was what was expected of him. He had no trouble doing it at the time. Later, though, he learned to hate himself for what he had done. He couldn't come to terms with having taken a life, and he struggled to understand the role of God in his choices. While this man spoke with me about thirty years of accumulated guilt and secret-keeping, he began to cry. It was gut-wrenching to watch him dissolve into tears over and over again. Towards the end of our conversation, he told me that he refused to go on anti-depressants because wanted to feel remorse for his actions. He didn't think he would be human if he became complacent with the things he had done.

I left the conversation filled with respect and awe, and nervous about how this man would continue to deal with the struggles faces each day. His story is one of many I am proud to know. I write for people like him, people who struggle to comprehend their wartime actions, or who don't understand why it was their friend who had to die, and why they were picked to stick around and go through life without someone they loved.

When I was researching for my book, I spent days writing down lists of the men who had died from the units I was writing about. I found out as much as I could about their home lives, their funerals, and the ways their short existences had been commemorated. I try to keep each of their stories with me, too. And each time I see another young man or woman has taken their own life as a result of this forgotten war, another story gets added to my list.