As a decorated army vet,

Sam has learned a few important things:

keep your memory sharp

for that is the only thing keeping

your fallen comrades alive

(nothing else will do the job for you);

understand that the questions you ask

will not always be resolved in the way you want

(life doesn't work in a linear fashion);

You are still human, after all of the

explosions, death, fighting, extremities

and it is a precious thing, not a commodity.

Your eyes have seen more than

can be explained or understood,

A cacophony of images

dispersing across your field of vision,

blinding you to the reality you're somehow excluded from

so that is why Sam finds importance in talk-therapy.

He is an anchor,

keeping everyone around him from drowning,

a rock

as a reminder of stability;

even he, who has seen the world at its worst,

needs a shoulder to cry on

because even the most powerful

can still feel vulnerable.

"Tell me all of your secrets,

Let me pick your brain,

because I can help you

make sense of it," said Sam,

to that vet who is afraid he lost it all

and even Sam keeps saying that sentence

to his own therapist too

because strength comes from connection

and he cannot ever forget that.

Sam may be physically strong

but emotional strength takes time.