John (name withheld at subject’s request) is a junior majoring in accounting. Like many other college students, he recently applied for a job. At one point, the company asked him about his experience in the military.

Unlike most college students, John has served in the military.

When he said that he earned a bronze star with valor and a purple heart, the interviewer told him that he had no idea what a bronze star was. Like many civilians, they did not know that this 23 year old had earned the fourth-highest award of the armed forces given for combat heroism.

John, like many returning veterans, faces problems most civilians could never imagine. The Iraq War is one of the longest wars in American history, and one that is still ongoing, but few Americans understand the war or the veterans who have served in it.

“People think they understand what I’ve been through, but they don’t really know,” John said. “People don’t believe me when I say I’m a war veteran. I was 18 when I left for Iraq, 20 for Afghanistan.”

At age 17, John enlisted in the Navy as a medic to see the world, but instead saw people being shot and blown up by improvised explosives on his two tours of duty, one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.

“I thought it sucked. I hated it,” John said about his military experience. He went on to clarify, “I hated being deployed because I missed out on a lot with family and friends, but I and everybody else enjoyed the camaraderie.”

He was not shy about his attitude while deployed.

“We were d***s, but we didn’t care. We didn’t want to be there and they didn’t want us there,” John said.

He receives a disability pension as a result of his second injury. John is deaf in his right ear, partially blind in his right eye and has nerve damage on the right side of his body, the result of a suicide bomber who drove a car into his Hummer and detonated a bomb. The last thing he remembers is the car driving towards his vehicle and the bomber looking for his detonator he had dropped.

“I told my gunner to swing around and kill that mother f****r,” John recalled.

What his comrades told him later is he woke up after being slapped. As the medic, his friends needed him. John inserted IVs into injured soldiers until he was put in another vehicle where another medic tried to put an IV in John’s arm. John kicked the medic off and put the IV in his arm himself.

Other members deployed with John noticed his courage. “His actions upon contact with the enemy showed courage and valor above the call of duty,” noticed Hans Watson, a captain in the Army. Watson went on to say, “I am honored to have served with him.”

John completed the remaining months of his tour injured before returning to the U.S., where doctors realized that he had nerve damage in his arm and wrist.

John’s fight was not over when he returned home. It took nine months for Veterans Affairs to approve his disability forms, when it usually takes three to six months. Doctors also diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder, the most common mental health problem among returning veterans. One in five Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffer from this problem or depression.

“It is so chaotic there,” John said of the Dallas VA hospital, where he has to get nerve and wrist operations. If he goes to another doctor, he loses his disability payments.

It was also hard for John to adjust to other parts of civilian life.

“You are in the mindset that you might die tomorrow so you do things that you wouldn’t otherwise do,” John said.

Now, John has settled down. After graduating from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2010, he plans on attending law school. Still, John continues to have trouble relating to people.

“It was hard not being around guys all the time. Then we could do whatever we wanted and no one would say anything to us,” John recalled.

As a medic, John saw many wounded and dead. The first time a soldier was killed in battle, the morale of the troops dropped.

“Everyone wanted to go out and find fire fights and get bronze stars and combat medals, but after that happened it all stopped,” John said. “People realized the consequences of that.”

John stopped going “badge hunting” in 2007 when his convoy lost five men in a fire fight in Afghanistan. John explained that the bands he wears on his wrist are for the men that died.

At the end of the day, when he thinks of all that he has seen in his life, John realizes one thing:

“I’m one of many who has been through it.”

John is one of the 1.6 million Americans who have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.