". . . unless you asked him." I think that's the key to opening the door. I never heard anyone open a conversation with, "Let me tell you what I did in the war." There were of course men who suffered for years with combat fatigue, a disorder now called "post trauma stress disorder." In the first war, they called it "shell shock." Call it what you like, it's a serious problem. I spent the better part of a decade doing volunteer at a VA hospital here in the Los Angeles area, and have seen as many men willing, even eager, to talk about their part in the war as those who would rather not.