i grew up in south st. paul, minnesota. i came from a large family. i went through high school.ly, i joined did marine corps after two of my brothers did before me. i actually thought about joining the air force but they said they would break my arm, but so i joined the marine corps. in 2003. and shortly after i was deployed to ramadi, iraq, in 2004, and it was a deployment that started with one of our marines shooting himself in the head. just kind of brushed that under the table and then 34 marines we lost throughout the deployment. had about 400, 450 marines injured. came back and went on leave and that was -- that was that. i started drinking pretty heavy. dealing with nightmares, dealing with things that wasn't really i was prepared to deal with, i would say. and i think one of the biggest reasons that i dealt within myself is because i was in a battalion of 1,000 marines and i don't think people wanted to hear my whining and complaining. and then shortly after we went in another deployment, noncombat, which just kept on drinking, kept on masking my issues with whatever --