I know how dangerous it is over there.

This is Iraq and the last time I remember Iraq where we were getting blown up a lot.

So it's probably even more fucked up now.

So do I really want to go and risk getting killed?

You know, but I thought about why am I there anyway.

You know, why did I join in the first place?

And how much will I let down these guys if I sit this one out?

Duty is above the letter of the law.

It's a way of calibrating what you want to do with what you're responsible for, and matching

all of that up against how you see yourself as a person.

Joalato had wanted to be in the military since he was a little boy.

Having become a soldier, he knew his duty primarily was to hold himself accountable to the

expectations his fellow soldiers had of him and the expectations he had of himself.

When you're a soldier though, sometimes you have to bet your life that what you're

doing is the right thing and that your comrades are as well.

You're walking down the road one second and the next second, you're hitting the chest

with a sledgehammer and you're on the ground.

And I'm completely conscious and lucid for all of this.

I see smell here feel everything that's going on around me.

And I'm walking in the next instant, I'm looking up into the sky and I knew that something

bad had happened.

I knew that I was hit.

...