The Archduke was a real champ, taking a bullet the way he did. And Zimmerman? Hero. They sure as hell made Steve Ramsey's life easier. He thought about this each morning as he drank his coffee and contemplated his existence. The war was simultaneously the best and worst thing to have ever happened to him. It got him out of Nowhere, Maryland and sent him on the adventure of a lifetime. He had seen and done things he had thought impossible. He had lived in trenches, survived on the slightest of rations, and buried his friends. He didn't always know why he was fighting, but had the general feeling that it was for the principles of good and freedom and other abstract notions brought to him courtesy of the Washingtons and Jeffersons of colonial times. That stuff didn't matter. Mostly, he made things go boom, and that never got old.

The government took an uncertain boy of eighteen and gave him a block of TNT. As much as he tried, Ramsey couldn't fault the Army for it. Being a sapper became the core of his being and he loved every moment of it: the smell of sulphur as he struck a match, the rush of adrenaline as he navigated mine fields, the absolute silence after an explosion. The silence would become more permanent, as his work took a toll on his hearing. He didn't mind it too much, as most of what others had to say was just noise anyway.

His battle buddies called him "Buttercup," a moniker he hated at first, as his skin yellowed from constant exposure to TNT. The name stuck, but he could have had it worse (a guy from third platoon was known simply as "Dick Lips"), so he endured the humiliation and, eventually, the cruelty behind the name disappeared altogether. It was simply who he was.

All good things must end, as was true of the Great War. Wilson saw to that in Versailles. And as much as the Army did for Ramsey, it did nothing for his wallet. The Legion did what it could, but it took years before he saw a cent of that bonus. In the meantime, he had drifted aimlessly along the east coast, doing odd jobs for varying amounts of pay. It was never enough, and nothing was as satisfying as the AEF. He began looking for jobs in demolition, but they were surprisingly sparse. Still, he took any opportunity that allowed him to experiment with explosives. It became an obsession.

He'd help himself to the stores of explosives, taking them home to play bombmaker, but he worried that someone would notice and he'd lose his job--something he couldn't afford. So, one night, he decided the only reasonable course of action would be to start stealing the older blocks. He knew the risk of injury would be greater, but he would be careful.

The TNT was wrapped in clear plastic, but it did little to prevent the "sweat" from covering his hands in sticky residue. He took as much as he could carry in his arms and left the compound where it was stored. Later, he would blame everything but himself--the driver, the car maker, the uneven sidewalk--but when that extremely volatile material hit the pavement and exploded, he knew he was in trouble.

By some miracle he survived the explosion, but he was sentenced to a decade behind bars. The system failed him. He was not rehabilitated. Instead, ten years of beatings and mistreatment sparked within him a burning hatred of the law and its servants. He spent his days counting down. He had an itch to scratch.