Between Afghanistan deployments, Everman went to Iraq, and that, at times, was like a movie. He was in the front row of one of the biggest conventional military operations since World War II, with helicopters hovering on either side of his vehicle, “the full might of the U.S. forces,” as he puts it, in the column behind him. As he shot grenades from a Humvee, he recounted, “Iraqi tanks were exploding all around, turrets shooting off into the desert. I saw stuff I never thought I’d see. Buildings blew up in front of me, dude.” At one point, he came across a pile of Iraqi Army boots, hundreds of them. “Guys would just strip off everything they had on that said they were army and split.”

I wanted to know every detail, but he wouldn’t say much. Or couldn’t. There’s a code among Special Forces: they don’t talk about what they do. I actually think this was part of the appeal for Everman. After having such a public rock face, he went for something that wasn’t just anonymous; it was classified. Mimi once met a couple of Special Forces guys who idolized Jason. “They didn’t approach like the usual fanboys who asked, ‘Your brother was in Nirvana?’ ” she said. “No, they came to me like: ‘Jason Everman is your brother?’ ” One turned to the other and said, “Dude, do you know what that guy’s done?”

In the war, Everman seemed to have found his place. The cloud didn’t go anywhere; it just didn’t matter anymore. As one of his Special Forces colleagues (who is still on active duty and requested that his name not be published) told me: “He would get moody sometimes, but it didn’t interfere with the task at hand. I would rather work with somebody who is quiet than ran their suck constantly.” In Everman’s cabin, I saw medal after medal, including the coveted Combat Infantryman Badge. “Sounds kind of Boy Scouty,” he said. “But it’s actually something cool.” I saw photos of Everman in fatigues on a warship (“an antipiracy operation in Asia”). A shot of Everman with Donald Rumsfeld. Another with Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. And that’s when it hit me. Jason Everman had finally become a rock star.

“The way I look at it, life is meaningless,” Everman said the last time I saw him. “The meaningfulness is what you impart to it.” The words sounded an awful lot like those of a philosophy undergrad, which is the latest iteration of Jason Everman’s life. He was talking about Jack Kerouac; he had to reread “On the Road” for one of his classes. We were standing in front of Butler Library on the Columbia University campus in New York. Everman looked rested and content, a backpack over his shoulder. After he left the military in 2006, he used the G.I. Bill to apply to two places: Seattle University and Columbia University. He says he threw Columbia in almost as a joke. General McChrystal wrote a letter of recommendation. To Everman’s shock, he was accepted. “It’s almost like a dare that went too far — and it keeps going.” At 45, he just received his bachelor’s degree in philosophy.

As we walked past all the oblivious college students, their whole lives ahead of them, I thought about how astonishingly few people do what Everman did. What happened to him was so brutal, seeing success pass him by — twice. But he didn’t let that misfortune define him. Of all the guys I knew through my years in rock, a precious few made it huge. Good for them. Most never came close. Some never managed to get past the failure of the dream, but it seems pretty clear that Everman did. When I told his former bandmates what he’d been up to, they all seemed genuinely thrilled with what he did with his life — and surely a little relieved.

As we made our way along what Columbia calls College Walk, I asked Everman what it was like to be a student after all he had been through. Everman smiled dryly. “It’s anonymous. Just the way I like it.” I suggested that his unique résumé might make him just about the coolest college professor of all time. “No way, man,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t have the patience. I’ll probably just be a bartender somewhere.”