“I spent a long time talking to my dad about this. He did two tours in Vietnam. He really helped me. My dad was the only one who could really understand it. He knew exactly. He saw a lot of bad stuff in Vietnam. He had post-traumatic stress, real bad. He used to beat me when I was a kid. One time I tripped over his feet and he swung around and hit me and broke my nose.

“I moved out and lived with my grandfather for a couple of weeks. That really hit him hard. He signed himself into the VA hospital and was there for three years in and out, getting treatment. He still sees a psychiatrist.”

After that experience, why did Merkley choose a military career?  “There are no jobs back where I come from. And my dad wanted me to go military. So did my grandfather. It was the one thing he wanted to see before he died.

“He almost made it. I was with the recruiters when I got a phone call saying, ‘Your grandfather is going.’ I raced home on the back roads in my mom’s Dodge Charger. Six or seven minutes home. He was dead.”