- The characters were characters that I cared about.
The arc of the story was something that
was sticking in my head,
and the conceptions about PTSD or depression
or things relating to reintegration problems
or difficulties dealing with trauma after the fact.
A part of who I've always been is
looking at things like a writer
and I guess I just felt like I had to tell this story.
So I turned it into a book.
(soft music)
My name is Matthew Hefti.
I was always really insecure about,
you know, I'm writing about this character
who grew up in the same area where I grew up
and did some of the same things growing up that I did,
and joined the military
with some of the same impulses that I did,
and didn't want everybody to say,
"Oh, this is like thinly veiled autobiography,"
because it's not.
Levi is a character who appears totally fine.
When he's interacting with others
he knows how to say the right things
and do the right things so that everybody thinks,
"Okay, everything's fine."
And when people question him on that
or press him on that,
he's had enough military briefings that he knows
what to say to kind of like ward off people pressing him
about any sort of reintegration issues
he might be having.
And it doesn't claim to say that that is
the experience for everybody,
because all of us veterans have varying
and extremely disparate experiences,
and even if we all had the same experiences,
would have different reactions to those experiences.
So I wanted to kind of address that issue, as well.
That it's all very messy and kind of in the middle,
because we can have damaged heroes.
We can have anti-heroes who do heroic things.
And we can have heroes who do despicable things.
People you may want to be friends with
or people you certainly wouldn't want to be friends with.
Every reading I've done,
people have asked insightful questions
and have been genuinely curious about
'How do we take care of vets better?'
How do we better address some of the problems
that Levi and Nick are dealing with?
And I don't have all the answers to those questions,
but it is very rewarding to be able to have
those discussions and at least have
that dialogue with people.
Because in a democratic republic society
like the one in which we live,
we're all responsible when our nation goes to war.
We're all responsible for taking care of people
when we bring people back from war.
And in a global world, we're all responsible for
the damage that we cause
to other human beings on this planet
who may have had nothing to do with our conflict.
When I initially went to the recruiter,
I said, "Well, what's this EOD thing?"
I had no idea what it was.
They said that's Explosive Ordinance Disposal.
They don't really do a whole lot.
Pretty much, they just wear cool sunglasses
and hang out with the Secret Service,
which is partially true,
and at the time there was no Iraq and Afghanistan.
No roadside bombs.
So I was like, well that does sound pretty cool,
so I signed up for that.
And in addition to taking apart the explosives
that were found,
we had to go out and do post-blast investigations
for things that had already gone off.
When improvised explosive devices do go off,
they often caused a lot of carnage,
a lot of mayhem.
And so picking through the body parts
and cleaning up
the...
the messes that came from
American service members
and Iraqi civilians getting,
basically, attacked and killed by explosives
was a common and frequent thing.
It was disillusioning.
I left the military and moved straight here
to Wisconsin and entered law school.
I knew that I wanted to do criminal defense.
I think criminal defense attorneys
serve a very important function in society
in that our system of justice does not work
unless everyone's afforded zealous advocacy.
I think it's important that if veterans
get caught up in the criminal justice system,
that they have advocates who understand
their unique issues so that those things
are taken into account,
because even in matters of guilt and innocence
and when we're deciding what punishments
are appropriate, context is important.
Really what I have my sights set on
is starting a non-profit that provides
pro bono legal assistance to veterans on death row.
They're over-represented on death row
compared to how veterans are represented
in the general population.
For various reasons,
I think the death penalty is inappropriate,
but I think it's especially perverse
when the government trains someone
to kill.
Let's say, sends them over to combat,
that person experiences deep trauma,
comes back and has problems with reintegration,
psychological problems,
and does something that may be admittedly horrible,
but instead of taking into account the context,
even though the government bears some culpability
for that, the government now wants to execute that person.
And that seems especially perverse to me.
And so I see a need and it's something
that I'm passionate about.
And just like when I was working with explosives
and the stakes were life and death,
the same is true when you're working for clients
on death row.
And so a lot of things that I missed about the military
in terms of the high stakes,
the tight-knit community that was focused
on one very important goal,
I find those same things present in
the capital defense community.
So I find it personally rewarding,
as well as a valuable thing to do
in service of others.
(keyboard music)