I have a scar next to my left eyebrow, right near my temple.

It looks like I got punched hard enough to split the skin. If I'm ever asked about it, I tell people I got it in Iraq, which is true. I don't elaborate on it more because it's embarrassing. If I'm really pressed I just say I passed out from exhaustion and hit my head on something.

In truth, my roommate and I were in our room in Iraq during some down time huffing dust off. The sound of people huffing dust off (we had a lot of it to simplify some weapon cleaning) was pretty common to hear - we lived in an abandoned sports gym/community center in the middle of Baghdad and just built our own walls and beds in the largest hall. So, we'd gotten a few good huffs in and decided we were going to take a monster one. So we did, and we both passed out.

Someone walked by our room and saw me on the ground with a little puddle of blood growing around my head. Our lame "suicide training" kicked in and this person flipped the fuck out, ran to the medics screaming that I had killed myself.

A big rush of leadership and medics ensued, and they found me, bleeding, on the floor and my roommate passed out in his chair. We started to come to, and the tension lessened. They thought we had just fought and knocked each other out - not a big deal. Luckily I'd had to foresight to place the dust off can in a little spot in the desk we made before passing out. I guess when I did pass out, I fell forward and hit my head on the corner of the desk we made and it split a 2 inch gash into my head.

So, I got stitched up and they asked me a ton of questions. I just said I couldn't remember, my roommate said the same.

I ended up getting "diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury" by the VA.