Brian confronts the horrors of war

The last time Elizabeth Woods saw her husband, Brian, alive was the last time they talked by webcam.

Brian didn't look good.

He had been working in the base hospital in Afghanistan for nearly 36 hours, and he was exhausted. He told her about treating wounded men with severed limbs and exploded body parts.

Elizabeth heard a weight in his voice that had never been there. His face looked pale and sallow. His eyes had dark circles around them. His hair stuck out in all directions, disheveled.

"It was incredibly hard seeing him that way," Elizabeth said. "He could barely keep his eyes open. I felt bad even keeping him up on the computer, but he still wanted to see me despite the fact that he was nearly falling over."

Because Brian was a medic, she said, he wasn't easily upset by unpleasant sights. But no matter how much training soldiers have, nothing can prepare them for the horrors of war. "He admitted to me that after some of the things he saw at the hospital, that it definitely shook him up a bit," Elizabeth said. "It was hard on him."

Brian's sister, Catrina Kelemen, also noticed a difference. "I know that he loved his job and his purpose in life was to be an Army man," she said, "but he had also found a new purpose in being a father to his beautiful daughters and a husband to his adoring wife and that made this time different for him."

Brian was at war, something he trained for his whole life. But his heart and soul, she said, were at home.