From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour.

I'm Sarah Austin Janess from The Moth, and I'll be your host this time.

This episode is devoted to American veterans.

The four stories you'll hear in this hour from the battlefield and behind the front lines

were told live at the Moth without notes in theaters across our country.

A soldier and his family cling to routine during wartime.

A female pilot and an African-American Marine remember World

War II. And our first storyteller, Mike Scottie, battles post-war darkness after serving in Iraq and

Afghanistan. Mike told this story in Albany, New York, at a moth night we produced with

public radio station, WAMC.

A word of caution, this story includes frank descriptions of the effects of combat.

Here's Mike Scottie, live with the moth.

So I can still remember the sound of the front door slamming behind me in my old apartment.

It's a small studio in New York City.

And I remember I had just gotten home from a run and I threw my keys up on the counter

and they slid across and they ran into my Blackberry, which just happened to be ringing it at that moment.

And at this point in my life, I'd been home from the war in Iraq for about a year and a half.

Things were starting to feel a little bit more normal.

I was in grad school.

I felt good that day because of the run.

But when I saw the name on the ID on the Blackberry, my heart dropped because it was my old

commanding officer from the Marine Corps.

...