From the time he joined the Army in 1996 until the IED explosion that maimed him in 2007, it had been hard to argue with the decision to re-up. School had never been his thing. He grudgingly finished high school only after a recruiter told him that the Army wanted to see he wasn’t a quitter. Besides, whenever Michael thought of leaving the Army, he wasn’t lining up any “safe” options for himself.

Two-and-a-half hours into the mission, Schlitz’s convoy had just finished clearing a dead end street. The convoy slowly made its about-face, with Schlitz riding in the Humvee bringing up the rear. Unbeknownst to him, the convoy was rolling over a deep-buried IED—constructed from two artillery shells and a propane tank—not picked up by their metal detectors.

From the time he joined the Army in 1996 until the IED explosion that maimed him in 2007, it had been hard to argue with the decision to re-up. School had never been his thing. He grudgingly finished high school only after a recruiter told him that the Army wanted to see he wasn’t a quitter. Besides, whenever Michael thought of leaving the Army, he wasn’t lining up any “safe” options for himself.