“He was the nicest guy you can imagine,” Iscol said. “My 22nd birthday was during our officer training course. None of us had slept. We were all starving. We were only getting one ration per day. But Ronnie wanted to give me a memorable birthday. So he put a candle in his brownie and gave it to me. That’s how nice of a guy he was. Ronnie ended up getting killed in Iraq. And if a guy like Ronnie got killed, you can’t help but wonder why you deserve to be alive.”

It’s one of many sentiments that have been shared recently by veterans on Humans of New York, the popular social-media group that was created to document the lives of New Yorkers and now has nearly 18 million followers on Facebook and 5.8 million more on Instagram. The series has seen numerous veterans and military family members share their observations of the world with photographer Brandon Stanton.

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At the outset of the project, Stanton said on Facebook he expected that the project would show conflicting feelings: “patriotism, disillusionment, pride, regret, gratitude, and grief.” Many of the veterans involved have post-traumatic stress, Stanton said, but the hardships they shared in interviews with Humans of New York are too nuanced for that diagnosis to capture everything involved.

“I know that many people have strong opinions about America’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Stanton wrote. “But as we meet the individuals behind the uniforms, and seek to understand their stories, I’m hoping we can momentarily put those politics aside. This is a great group of people who served and sacrificed at the request of their country. And I’m very thankful that they’ve volunteered to share their stories.”

In an email, Stanton added that the stories of hypervigilance, a common trait in post-traumatic stress cases, were remarkably similar. Many of the interviews ran several hours and covered a number of subjects, ranging from time in combat to how they have integrated back home.

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“A majority of my audience is international, and many have strong feelings toward the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Stanton said. “Other people have strong feelings toward the military in general, whether positive or negative. It’s hard to talk about war without bringing those feelings out. But on the whole, I’ve found the comments to be remarkably supportive and civil.”

The veterans include patients with the Headstrong Project, a nonprofit that offers free, confidential treatment for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan in New York, the San Diego area and Houston and which partnered with Humans of New York for the project. Iscol, its executive director, said that initially, he had concerns about how the veterans would be received by the Humans of New York audience, saying few of them have served, but has been inspired by the response. The posts have been shared thousands of times each.

“Humans of New York represents the best of this city,” said Iscol, who expects the series to wrap up this week. “It’s getting people to walk in someone else’s shoes.”

Some of the participants, like Marine Corps veteran and author Elliot Ackerman, are recognizable to those who are familiar with the military. But most share their stories with a matter-of-fact tone and their identities are more private.

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In one case, an Army veteran who served as a medic said he still struggles with the memory of an Afghan girl who had stepped on a land mine while playing soccer. She was “gone below the knee, gone below the elbow, gone below the hand” and screaming, but he drowned the chaos out and focused on treating her.

“I focus on our interventions,” he said. “Stop the bleeding. Apply tourniquets. Administer the IV. I overdosed her on morphine. I’ll never forget that. I just kept pushing until the screaming stopped. And then a helicopter came and got her. And she lived. And I was fine throughout the whole thing. I was just like a robot. I’d been trained for chaotic situations. But they don’t train you for the aftermath. They don’t train you for when the helicopter has lifted off and suddenly everything is quiet.”

Some of them don’t show their faces in the photographs, particularly when sharing intimate details about their lives. One man said he suffered burns in a fire inside his armored vehicle in Iraq and sought help only after having flashbacks in the middle of raid while working with a SWAT team in New York.

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“After I had the flashback that night, two of the guys on my team came up to me and said: ‘You’re getting help.’ I said: ‘No, I’m not.’ And they said: ‘Yes, you are. Most of us do,’ ” he said. “And that finally convinced me. I’d never gotten help because I never wanted to appear weak. I’m the son of a man who lost his entire team in Vietnam. I’ve been through some of the toughest training on earth. I never quit anything in my life. So it took me the longest time to admit that I had a problem.”

(3/3) “After I had the flashback that night, two of the guys on my team came up to me and said: ‘You’re getting help.’ ... Posted by Humans of New York on Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Iscol said Headstrong will expand to Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington this fall. He is hopeful that veterans who haven’t sought help but may need it will be inspired by those who participated in the Humans of New York project.

“These are not things you need to live with or cope with for the rest of your life,” he said. “These are things that are surmountable.”