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Doug Zwank considers the fate of Eric Pizer and thinks, “That could have been me.”

Like Pizer, Zwank is a combat veteran and former corporal in the Marine Corps. And like Pizer, he narrowly escaped death while serving his country overseas.

After returning from Vietnam, Zwank started what would become a long career in law enforcement, first as a special agent for the state Department of Justice, then later training fellow officers at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia. He also worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and served as mayor of Middleton for four years.

But in 1968, when he returned from combat to attend UW-Madison , Zwank was just another angry veteran, traumatized by the deaths of his friends and comrades and trying to unlearn the instincts that had kept him alive at war. He got into fights, Zwank said, but was never arrested.

“It was a time when it wouldn’t take much to haul off and hit somebody,” Zwank recalled.