After completing his freshman year of college, Ed Carr wanted an adventure. So, he enlisted in the Marine Corps: "War was only a word to me then." Before arriving in Vietnam, Carr attended boot camp at Parris Island and language school in Del Mar, CA. When he arrived in Vietnam, he was assigned as the forward observer for Fox Trot Battery, 2nd Battalion, 11th Marines. For ten months, Carr was in heavy combat, and after Operation Meade River, "a suicide mission," Carr "wanted to quit." He was reassigned as a translator, and then returned home. Affected by severe PTSD with no offered support from the VA, Carr turned to drugs and alcohol to numb his pain; he does not remember anything from his first ten years back in the U.S.. In this interview, Carr recalls the experience of combat, his life after the war, and his thoughts on the Vietnam War today.