DAVENPORT, Iowa (CNN)  -- Bob Konrardy carried the guilt with him for more than 40 years. A platoon commander in Vietnam, Konrardy was wounded when shrapnel tore through his body. Four comrades carried him to safety in a poncho for more than an hour while the firefight raged.



Bob Konrardy says the fallen soldier monument outside his home honors soldiers killed in Iraq like Dave Behrle.



"These four guys went back to help the platoon because they were still fighting, and all four of those guys got killed," Konrardy says. "I felt guilty for 40-something years."



Two years ago, Konrardy got to thinking: He'd be a Santa of sorts for soldiers in Iraq as a way to help him deal with his conscience.



He would collect autographed college and pro footballs, letters from local kids and other mementoes from home to help inspire the troops in Iraq. Then, he would have the goods delivered to his old platoon serving in Iraq, the First Cavalry Division.



He initially thought he'd have the material shipped. But his plan changed when the military signed off for Konrardy to deliver the goods in person and work as an embedded journalist for a local paper.



The 65-year-old grandpa was about to head to one of the world's most dangerous places.  Watch "I could have been killed" »



"I wanted to maybe bury some Vietnam demons and just make a difference with this platoon and maybe make up for what I didn't do with my old platoon," he says. "I thought it was going to go one way. It went the other. It made me worse."



He adds, "I couldn't sleep before, but now it's worse. I hate to see it get dark. I get extremely nervous. I get uptight. I just don't like to see it get dark. And once it is dark, I'm on edge until it gets dawn."



Konrardy's story is one of patriotism, heroism and torment -- a war veteran unable to escape what happened in 1965, when he was just 23.



"Here's a guy who is a true American hero in his own right. He was wounded in action in the Iadrang Valley, and he comes into a combat zone 40 years later," says Maj. Chris Rogers, the operations officer of the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, when Konrardy embedded with them.



"In my opinion, he's a guy who has done it all -- bled for his own country -- and he's more interested in telling the story of today's generation of young heroes than trumpeting his own horn."



Konrardy was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder shortly after he retired from John Deere in 2002, when he says his disorder really kicked in. He once sleep-drove to a Wal-Mart about 20 minutes from his home at 3 a.m. He doesn't recall how he got there or how he got home. He only remembers a guy mopping the floor asking if he could be helped.



Other times, he'd patrol the neighborhood in the wee hours of the night with his loaded 9-mm pistol on his hip. His counselor with the Department of Veterans Affairs once asked what he would do if the police ever stopped him.



"I said, 'I'll just shoot out his windows and escape and evade back to the house. I think it'd be fun.' She didn't like that answer," he says with a laugh. "So I'm lucky because that's probably what I would've tried to do."



Konrardy checked himself into a VA facility in Des Moines, Iowa, to get help for his PTSD. He chuckles more when he recounts trying to escape from the place and police approached him. "I rolled down a hill and started running so they couldn't catch me. They said that was the wrong thing to do."  Learn about PTSD and how to get help »



He says he was then put in an isolation ward for 11 days and nights, and eventually
What did the Army veteran do? What sould the nation be ready for when troubled soldiers return from Iraq? What was the army veteran trying to expunge by going to Iraq? Who spent four days on patrol in March 2007 as a journalist? How many days did Bob Konrardy spend on patrol in March 2007? Where did the army veteran go? What did Bob Kennedy do?
checked himself into a VA facility post-traumatic stress disorder guilt Bob Konrardy 11 Iraq. He would collect autographed college and pro footballs, letters from local kids and other mementoes from home to help inspire the troops in Iraq.
question: What did the Army veteran do?, answer: checked himself into a VA facility | question: What sould the nation be ready for when troubled soldiers return from Iraq?, answer: post-traumatic stress disorder | question: What was the army veteran trying to expunge by going to Iraq?, answer: guilt | question: Who spent four days on patrol in March 2007 as a journalist?, answer: Bob Konrardy | question: How many days did Bob Konrardy spend on patrol in March 2007?, answer: 11 | question: Where did the army veteran go?, answer: Iraq. | question: What did Bob Kennedy do?, answer: He would collect autographed college and pro footballs, letters from local kids and other mementoes from home to help inspire the troops in Iraq.