Five years after his last nightmare, Williams is once again confronted with war: Operation Iraqi Freedom, which is all over the news. With the talk of impending war, Williams remembers his PTSD: hearing fireworks and thinking of bombs and gunfire; going to the beach and remembering the desert; watching war movies and seeing himself in combat. But it was in graduate school that he made the most progress in dealing with it, when the teachers he met, and talked to, recognized his trauma, and helped him. In a group therapy course, Dr. Miller helps him understand the feelings of unpreparedness, incompetence, and powerlessness that bring the dreams.

Williams continues to work with the Young Marines programs, which continues to grow. But in 2003, as the war rhetoric begins to heat up, the anxiety and stress return. He doesn’t hear his young son asking him to play, or his daughter crying, or his wife asking for help. He is both scared for—but also angry at and resentful of—the Marines being sent to Iraq. This time, however, he understands how to deal with it: he begins writing the book. He calls Doug Moss and Jim Bounds and Ray Celeste.