Hazard Ground

Staff Sergeant John Diem knows what it means to serve one's country. That phrase gets thrown around a lot, but John Diem embodies the spirit of patriotism in every sense of the word. He has served multiple combat tours as an infantryman, spending most of that time on the line as part of an infantry squad. He survived a year-long deployment to Iraq's "Triangle of Death", where he and his unit suffered almost daily bomb, mortar, and small arms attacks, before four members of his platoon were convicted of murdering an Iraqi family of four in Yusufiyah. Although he projects a somewhat reserved appearance, his peers have described him as an "absolute killer in combat." The steady and calm timbre he uses in normal, everyday conversation, is the same tone he uses when the bullets are flying all around him. The rigors of combat and in general, the Army, have challenged Diem's mettle many times, but perhaps nothing tested him more than when Private First Class Justin Watt broke the news to him about the family in Yusu