Great story, Nathan. And great use of his photos.

God Bless You. I believe in what you are all doing and have done over there and most of all, THANK YOU for serving!

Nicholas should be ashamed of himself. National Guard? I am with 1st Cavalry Division 1st Brigade Combat Team 2/8 Cav. out of Ft. Hood, TX and all I saw was terror! Sand and Heat I welcomed that atleast that let me know I was alive unlike 10 people who's Memorial Service I attended. I myself was blown up by an I.E.D. and injured badly enough to receive a Purple Heart and be air medivaced back to FT. Sam Houston, TX to receive treatment for a brain injury. I see soldiers everyday missing limbs, burnt from head to toe and Nicholas feels like he has a right to speak on the war. Be happy Nicholas that you could throw a football with Iraqis, in my Sector of Operation we were to busy trying not to be shot by snipers.

I'm am very annoyed by this comment....my husband is with the Iowa National Guard, he is in the infantry he has received his CIB TWO TIMES because of war and because of being shot at... and he has been on two deployments on to afghanistan and one to iraq recently. total he has spent almost 3 yrs away from me and our son. he was shot at several times...I.E.Ds were there...snipers all of it. In afghanistan if I was pregnant at the time then my husband could have been killed. he got home for his annual leave 5 hrs before i went into labor and the man who replaced him was killed by a sniper...one other guy lost his arm and others were hurt as well. the drove over a bridge and they just made it acrossed and not 20 ft was the last guy over and it blew up...THANK GOD THEY ALL MADE IT OVER!!!! then in iraq i have heard the stories and i have seen things i have never wanted to see in my life. he earned his CIB for the second time in Iraq when a sniper shot at him four times and missed all four!!! he earned what he did and i am very proud of him for what he has done. I know of another soldier that was in the NATIONAL GUARD that was killed while being over seas. so if you think that national guard is just the guard you are sadily mistaken and they have a HUGE role in what is going on...just as much as anyone in the military. I dont care what part of the military you are in or anyone else, but YOU ALL HAVE A PART and YOU ALL MATTER!!! this is war and it is the people like you that think they are better then everyone else that think they they rule it all.

i just want to say to anyone in the military thank you!!! you all are very strong and wonderful people. if it wasnt for people in the military ANY BRANCH OF we would be living in the hell of 9/11 or worse every day of our lives. THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS

Thanks to everyone who has served for our country and god bless the fallen soldiers who were brave enough to go out there and fight for what they thought was right

My intent wasn't to down play the role of the Guard, I was simply upset with Nicholas's comments about the War being Movies, Sand, and Heat. It is bigger than that and you and your husband definitly are aware of just how big it is. It isn't right for me to judge the Guard by his comments, and I am sorry for that. He should have kept his mouith shut and left his 3 minutes of fame to someone more deserving. Atleast a couple of times a week soldiers at the Warrior Transition Battalion at Ft. Sam Houston are asked to talk about something in reference to the war and no one does it. Most people who have been through stuff like your husband his fellow soldiers, or myself don't go on TV and talk about it. Somethings are better left unsaid.....FIRST TEAM.....

Yes things are left out and people dont go out talking about it all the time and i dont know all of what my husband went through because he doesnt want to talk about it either and i understand why you would think that he was lookin for fame because he did get his voice out but at the same time all the media ever talks about is bad bad bad and horrible when was the last time anyone got to see what nathan put out there....i never recalled anyone putting out pics or footage that he did. it was nice to finally see something else out that that didnt involve sniper this or IED this or so many killed or suicide bombers. i really liked this.

and what offended me was the comment about national guard you should be ashamed of yourself...that is what really offended me...and when he talk about the heat that is something my husband is always asked about and the sand it is something that is there and my husband watched a lot of movies as well, but a lot of the time it was in free time when he got it to keep his mind off of what was coming. so he didnt lie one bit there is heat sand and movies.
for the fact that people dont talk..it could be for 100 reasons. my husband doesnt tell me a lot because he doesnt want to scare me or doesnt want me to be afraid of everything. or maybe people dont talk because they dont want to be reminded of what they went through or maybe they dont talk because they have the same opinion as you, but do you really want only the bad out there?!?! i dont i was happy with this video and happy to see that there was someone that wanted to talk about this, because the bad is all that is out there. and this man stepped up and pointed out the good as well

As the producer of this video I feel compelled to comment. Nic wasn't looking for his "3 minutes of fame," I approached him to tell his story, which I think he did very well. To take one comment that he made about "movies, sand and heat" is to completely disregard the point of the story itself. Also, he made that comment to show that not every minute of their tour there was spent getting blown up. I don't think you have the right to judge him on how he served simply because you saw more terror and because you have a purple heart, and to speak like that I think is ignorant and self-absorbed. The goal of this story was to get a view-point that the media doesn't often show, straight from someone who's been there. Watch the video again, no one person can tell everyone's story.

I agree completely. Even though there is so much bad out there, there is still so much good. I think that the footage was very well put together and he does point out that there isn't all bad out there. I really liked to see the footage of the "playing catch" with the football. It must be so amazing to be able to get to be that close and show that people can trust the people of the middle east (yes there are the bad but this shows that there are good) i do realize it is a kid, but i have heard the horror stories of the children as well. There were months that my husband would say that he just went out on the road and saw nothing, but then there were the bad events. I found myself most of the time not listening to the media and resetting home pages on the internet because i was sick of reading all the bad. I found myself scared out of my mind three fourth of the time and then i talked to my husband and he would make me feel better and in fact as nic said it was old material. i really appriciate this video and the fact that he got to say stuff that most dont and that is the fact that things aren't as bad as it seems, but there really is bad and the media needs to learn to not make it out the way they do.
Good work on what you did to get his voice out there and great work to Nic for all that he has done with his life and the fact he did get his voice out. And i also agree that he wasnt looking for fame he was getting his opinion out where he should and it is nice to hear and see that he is safe and does realize that the media has portrayed things wrong.
good work and thanks nathan