MrBallen

And I pictured her on the couch in our home in Virginia, just like with our cats, just watching TV.

And like, probably tonight someone's going to tell her that I'm dead.

And what I also thought was like, we don't have kids.

She's young.

She'll be devastated, no doubt, but what's going to happen here is time's going to go on, and she's going to marry somebody else and have a different life.

She'll respect me and honor me, but I'm gone.

And then I also thought, I wonder what the newspaper will say about my death.

Not the story, just will they write Jonathan Allen, like killed in action Jonathan Allen, or killed in action John Allen.

It was just like, I wonder if it'll say my full name or John Allen.

And so the one guy who was not gravely injured on this contact, there was like seven of us,

He was our medic, sort of luckily.

He's up for all sorts of awards.

He came over to me, and I could feel him.

I couldn't hear or see him, and he put tourniquets on me, and they literally whisked me out, carried me out to a helicopter, and they saved my life.

So I survived.

Obviously, I survived.

Here I am.

But, you know, the reality for me is that, of course, there was, you know, I had to process this thing, which I really didn't do a good job of.

For a while, I actually ignored it.

I just never talked about it.