My neighbor just returned from a war. I noticed something different about him right away—an edge that I hadn’t noticed before. It wasn’t a drastic change. Nor was it concrete. It wasn’t something you could see or grab, only feel, like a bullet whizzing by your ear.

And what of this edge? What tragedies lay behind it? What sort of experiences are so profound that they can alter a human being’s personality, even slightly?

“My name is Corporal Seth Reil of the United States Marine Corps,” he said lighting the first of a dozen Camel Lights he would smoke during our interview. “I work with the military working dogs. My dog was trained for attacking and also finding explosives. My unit worked in eastern Ramadi in the al-Anbar province.”

Reil and his unit were stationed in a small combat outpost known as an FOB (Forward Observing Base). The dogs and the dog handlers all lived together in a hardened building called The Hooch.