Today, we shared my journal.
In turn, we shared our stories.
And tonight, a reunion brought us home from the battlefield.

Men growing older with memories of combat scrolled through journal passages recorded during the heart of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Each entry plunged us back to Southeast Baghdad during Iraq's descent into sectarian violence.

Recalling our deployment to Forward Operating Base Rustamiyah, we reminisced about patrols along the Tigris River, down bomb-cratered roads called Route Pluto or Wild, into disintegrating neighborhoods like Jisr Diyala. We revisited our past and a story of a fracturing Iraq through words only written, now finally spoken.

We came to terms with truths of those battles that challenged our innermost wartime convictions. In a conflict without a ticker-tape victory parade, how do you find closure? How do you soldier forward?