How do you find peace after war? A combat vet and NPR reporter's bond points a way

toggle caption Caroline Yang for NPR

The first I saw of Dave Carlson was his back, in a prison jumpsuit on Sept. 3, 2015. Carlson had been calling me from the cellblock payphone for a few weeks for an NPR story about incarcerated combat veterans and PTSD.

"Jail is the least therapeutic atmosphere you could probably ever imagine," Carlson had told me over a scratchy phone line. "You come in one way and you leave three times worse."

Now I finally got a look at him, while the judge decided if Carlson could walk free — or stay locked up for up to six more years. He was 31, and the only Black man I remember seeing in that courtroom in Waukesha, Wisc. Nearly done with a four-year sentence for robberies and drug offenses, he was facing additional charges for crimes he'd committed inside prison.

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Carlson served two combat tours in Iraq, and none of his military buddies could make sense of how he'd wound up sitting in the dock.

Listen to "Carlson's War" Hear NPR's 2-part story about Dave Carlson, an Iraq vet who journeyed from war to incarceration to redemption on his long path to coming home. Up First from NPR Carlson's War: Part 1 Carlson’s War: Part 1 Listen · 26:37 26:37 Up First from NPR Carlson's War: Part 2 Carlson’s War: Part 2 Listen · 27:20 27:20

"When it came to how to lead and how to represent yourself, David was definitely on the list of people that I held in an iconic standpoint," National Guard Sgt. David Rock told me that day. They had met in 2007 on Carlson's second deployment.

Three other Iraq buddies filled a back row in the courtroom, along with Carlson's family.

Their stories of his strengths and virtues, and Carlson's thoughtful interviews on the phone from jail just didn't square with the long rap sheet the judge was reading off: felony operating under the influence, felony bail jumping, battery by prisoner while incarcerated.

"So the maximum exposure here is 12 years today with six years of confinement," Judge Donald Hassin concluded. Hassin himself had served as well, in Vietnam, but it wasn't clear whether that was going to help or hurt Carlson's case.

" Mr. Carlson, this criminal justice system, frankly, has bent over backwards and going through a lot of hoops in an effort to maintain you in the community. And frankly, sir, the response to all that has not been good," the judge said.

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I was there in Waukesha to cover Carlson's sentencing as part of my first-ever domestic job as a reporter after covering wars in South America, Africa and then Afghanistan and Iraq for 15 years. I'd pitched NPR on beat following vets and the Department of Veterans Affairs as a new generation navigated the return to civilian life. But I'd had personal reasons too: I wasn't sure how to make a meaningful life back home after the urgency and all-consuming lifestyle of war reporting. Many veterans had the same question as I did: How do you get over war? Covering Dave Carlson's story would help provide an answer — but it would play out over 10 years of conversations, of dark difficult times and moments of remarkable triumph.

Mentorship and moral injury

Carlson grew up rough, around violence, drugs and prostitution in Milwaukee.

"My dad was a crackhead and a pimp,