Owen Powell is a retired military police sergeant, former Marine, and Iraq combat veteran whose experiences in war have been chronicled in the New York Times, on NPR, and perhaps most prominently in Doonesbury artist Garry Trudeau's remarkable collection The Sandbox: Dispatches from Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. In this conversation he tells me about growing up the child of a U.S. combat veteran, his attitude toward military service and war, and how being shot in Iraq made an impact on his spiritual development.