In April of 2004, Army Ranger Stephen Elliott was deployed with the second Ranger battalion to Afghanistan.

The objective of Operation Mountain Storm was to kill or capture Osama bin Laden.

On April 22nd Stephen Squad was attacked by enemy combatants which resulted in four casualties, one of whom was former NFL Safety Pat Tillman.

It was told very plainly by all of us what happened and it was concluded very clearly that it was from the fire.

That was the first time that the possibility that maybe I had fired on pad and maybe hit him in what was practically darkness had occurred.

That's when the real, for me the real survivor's guilt started kicking in, that's when the post-matic stress really started kicking in.

That's when the nightmare started kicking in. That's when I started self-medicating with alcohol.

It was the point when you're pulling a handgun out of your gun safe at home and just thinking about the fact that this could all be over really easily.

Not because I didn't have things I wanted to look for but because I didn't know how to rest. I didn't know how to make it stop.

A lot of questions, a lot of questions like why? Why did that happen? Why me? Who's fault is it?

Is it my fault and my solely to blame? Is the chain of commands fault? Are they to blame or are we both to blame?

How do I deal with the guilt that I feel for having done what I've done? How do I deal with the shame that I feel for not just having done something potentially that harmful but am I the thing that I did?

We all have the same need to answer the same question of who am I and why am I and why am I here. And in being here, what do I do with the fact that I hurt people sometimes unintentionally, sometimes on purpose? And they hurt me. What do I do with that?

This is part two of a conversation we had with our good friends, Stephen and Brooke Elliott.

There's a story of tragedy, depression, heartache, grace and redemption. It's our prayer that by hearing their story, you can marvel with us at the goodness of God and to repair and restore lives even when all hope seems lost.

There was many nights, most nights I should say where he was on the computer and many nights where he was drinking and I knew that he was not telling me the whole story with that.

And so, you know, for them to connect in those early years, I felt was really, really important and it wasn't happening until it was like a constant, a constant source of pain for me. It just really, really broke my heart.

How long did this kind of go on with you, sort of, you know, battling alone? It sounds like. And what did that lead to in your guys' relationship? I'm sure with the listeners.

We know your journey, but obviously we want to hear.

Ultimately, so that was 2000. I got out in May of 2007 and then for the next really two years, basically not quite two years was kind of the final lake down in our first marriage.

It was exactly two years.

Because I got out in a seven, was financial advisor with large firm and turns out there's a financial crisis 2008. And so just to add to everything.

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