Veteran art creates a meeting place between veterans and civilians, or simply between veterans with different experiences.

And that was my homecoming. It was fine, I guess. Getting back feels like your first breath after nearly drowning. Even if it hurts, it's good.

The part of the strangeness of coming back from the war is the way we talk about it. We try to have a discussion about the war that doesn't turn into a discussion about one political side or the other. I wanted to reach out and talk to people about it through fiction, the way a narrative can draw someone in and ask them those questions.

There are two ways to tell the story. Funny or sad. Guys like it funny, with lots of gore and a grin on your face when you get to the end. Girls like it sad, with a thousand-yard stare out to the distance as you gaze upon the horrors of war they can't quite see. Either way, it's the same story.

War is too strange to be processed alone.

Fiction offered me tools that allowed me to approach a wider variety of issues than the events of my own life would.

Veteran art creates a meeting place between veterans and civilians, or simply between veterans with different experiences.