It sounds as if a lot of your illusions were shattered. Were any of them maintained?
I guess the only one that did prove true was about the intensity that comes from being in the military. Everything has this intensity. I think that's why so many people go back there. Me and my friend Reto talked about going back. The intensity that you imagine a football player might feel going out on Super Bowl Sunday. Personally, I haven't felt that alive since I've come back, and I've talked to several veterans who say the same thing. That intensity is gone. There were a lot of disillusions, but I think they came from being so young. You know, I wanted "the journey into manhood."
All these people are committing adultery. For me, I didn't have a problem with that, morally. My problem was, I'm supposed to trust these people with my life. And how can I trust them when their husbands and wives can't trust them?
You talk about the intensity and about not sleeping. Do you think you have PTSD?
I think to an extent all soldiers come back with PTSD. If you do what we do and see what we see, if you're not affected in a deep way, then that's a problem. If you go over and say, "This is the best time of my life, seeing all this death and destruction" — that's a disorder of its own. Coming home with PTSD just means you're human. I think everyone comes home with PTSD, and there are just more severe cases.
Are you sleeping through the night now?
I think it took me six months. When I went on that date with that girl, that's when I really cleaned up, started to clean up. I stopped smoking, quit popping pills. I thought, "I've got to get this story out there. I've got to clean up my act. Get everything straight."
So you basically cleaned up to write the book?
Definitely, yeah.
