Before we start today's show, we want to share a warning that this episode has explicit language,
descriptions of violence, and includes mentions of suicide.
Okay, here's the show.
I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is A Sunday Story.
Veterans Day is coming up this week,
so I wanted to invite NPR's Quill Lawrence onto the show to share a story he's been working on for 10 years.
Quill has covered vets in the Department of Veterans Affairs for NPR since 2012,
and for almost that whole time he's been following the story of one combat veteran's journey home.
So Quill, welcome.
Oh, thank you, Aisha.
Now, just to brag a little bit,
NPR is the only mainstream national network that has consistently had a dedicated veterans reporter.
And Quill, that started with you.
How did you get the job?
Yeah, I was a war correspondent for about 15 years.
And at the end of that, I was working at NPR bureaus in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the beginning of those wars,
I could just cruise around Either of those countries in a beat-up taxi and just sort of keep a low profile.
As the wars got more intense, the only way I could get around was to embed with U.S.
troops.