Last night we (my drunk roommate, our drunk neighbors and my-sober-self) talked to a Light Infantryman on his way back from the gas station. Home was Kansas and he was going back the next day. I don't know when but he had come home from Iraq and was having a hard time adjusting.

My neighbors were more interested in his tattoos and he gladly showed them off. He had twenty tattoos (only one of which I attempted), the most . . . disturbing, I suppose that's the word I want, of which was his dog tag information on his chest. He had that one done for identification purposes (in case his dog tags/head were separated from his body).

Drunk Neighbor: "Wow, that's fucked up."

Soldier: "That's life."

Didn't talk much, didn't know that I could even fathom his world. Shook his hand when he left, never got his name.