I Had Grown Up During Vietnam. I

The Army Might Screw You And Your Girlfriend Might Dump You And The Enemy Might Kill You, But The Shared Commitment To Safeguard One Another’s Lives Is Unnegotiable And Only Deepens With Time. The Willingness To Die For Another Person Is A Form Of Love That Even Religions Fail To Inspire, And The Experience Of It Changes A Person Profoundly.

There's No Reason To Do Anything Twice, And Certainly No Reason To Do Something That Almost Killed You.

I Don't Think People Would Climb Mountains Or Jump Off Bridges With Parachutes Or Kayak Class V Rapids If Those Things Didn't Offer The Brief And Horrible Illusion Of Imminent Death. They Would Just Be Complicated, Time-consuming Endeavors That We'd Steer Well Clear Of Because They Got In The Way Of Real Life.

War Affected My Family A Lot, And I Was Quite Curious About It. I First Went Off To War In The Early 90's As A Journalist, Partly Out Of Curiosity And Partly Because I Needed A Career. War Reporting Has Been Very Glamorous And Exciting, And Everything Else That Young Men Like.

Ironically, Though Our Society Of Affluence Brings Safety And Stability, It Doesn't Bring Psychological Health. As Wealth Goes Up, Suicide And Depression Rates Tend To Go Up. I Read One Study That Compared Women In North America With Women In Nigeria, And The Group With The Highest Rates Of Depression Was Urban North American Women, Which Is The Wealthiest. Now, There Are Obviously Huge Stresses That Come With Poverty, But The Poorer The Society, The More Collaborative People Have To Be.