Most of us in Wisconsin will spend this weekend with friends and family, grilling out, and probably not thinking too much about why we have Monday off. But if you like to rattle the cage of certain family members the way I do, ask them a question that’s not asked often enough:

What does war mean to you?

Here’s an answer from an infantryman:

1. defecating in my pants because i couldn’t sit, stand or crouch, without being killed, for 14 hours;

2. then when i could move, dragging a dying, fellow soldier and his intestines strung out 5 feet or so behind him 50 meters to a medic who told me he was dead;

3. not sleeping more than 3 hours at a time for 3 months;

4. not taking a shower or bath for 40 days;

5. giving a 4 or 5 year old child an opened can of fruit cocktail, and watch her walk 30 meters and step on a small mine;

6. then trying to stop the spurting blood pulsing from wherever her leg and groin used to be while i screamed for help while she turned a gray-blue and died;

7. not being in any kind of shelter, outside during the monsoons for 10 days, in 45 degree weather and gusting winds, watching as my skin shriveled like a white prune, as scratches became sores and sores became a greenish oozing mass;

8. being so bored that i would put gunpowder from a .50 caliber bullet on a beetle as big as plate, light it and bet with my fellow soldiers how far it would run before it turned over and popped;

9. throwing a peanut m&m at an officer after he berated me because i failed to stand up and salute him when he passed by, and then being threatened with a court martial for ‘assaulting an officer’;

10. being wounded in the mouth by a fragment of the vertebrae of the soldier 5 feet in front of me as his back blew open;

11. crying myself to sleep at night until i believed i was immortal and could not die;

12. seeing a young kid beheaded a few yards away from me, suddenly, and watching the head bounce into a small filthy ditch