Coleman Ruiz

Boom.

And then a buddy gets killed and then it's not even always with death.

Then you have extreme firefight or, you know, close call.

And then it's just boom, boom, shock, shock, shock, shock.

It's almost like getting TBI for the nervous system.

It's just a constant high.

To me, it always felt like,

that constant high end.

Now, if you keep going, perhaps if you never recognize any of it and you just keep jacking the dopamine and the adrenaline your whole life, maybe you can just never recognize it.

But for me, when I shut the engine off and I decided it's not really how I wanted to live.

And I was trying to work out of that low grade, whatever I was residue that I was left with.

It was like every time I came home from deployment, I would get sick that night.

Like I would have a fever that night, headache and fever.

And I tend to get sick at the end of the year.

Last two years, it was Christmas.

This year, it was Thanksgiving.

And, you know, Bridget and I always joke about it.

It's because I slightly turn the engine down a little.

And then, you know, the immune system... Yeah, that's the way it works.

You're in gunfights every day.