Eleven-year-old Ken Gunther lives with his father in their small apartment in Norwich, Connecticut. It’s 1985, and Ken’s father has taught him how to listen, so that is what Ken does. He listens to the veterans he encounters, men like his father who have seen the reality of war and returned home. Ken sees the physical and emotional burdens the men carry. Some are like his father, veterans of Vietnam who still carefully navigate America a decade after the end of their war. Others, such as his neighbor, Colonel Essex, survived the horrors of the First World War. Ken hears their stories of violence and loss and keeps it safe for all of them.