MMA Fighting: Why Tim Kennedy Won't Stop Talking About the Military, Even if You Want Him To By Ben Fowlkes

But let's be honest, these aren't the things people want to hear about when there's prizefighting to be done. Hence the backlash when Kennedy brings it up. Hence the forum threads and snarky Twitter rants. Not only are these types of stories a downer, they're not even sufficiently novel anymore.

After nearly ten years of wars, we've heard about so many wounded vets who have been forced to rebuild their lives that it's too mundane to seem special anymore. Even the tales of their injuries are no longer sufficiently horrifying for us, which is itself horrifying in a different way.

The wars go on, the soldiers get blown up, but back home we prefer to keep our pro sporting events free from such interruptions. Tell us about your sponsors, fine. But don't go off on this military thing again. We were having such a good time.

For Kennedy, the fact that people are sick of it is precisely what motivates him to tell them, again and again.

"I think people already have forgotten," he said. "It's not like I have a responsibility to do it, but I'm very passionate about it and I know people have forgotten how many guys we have overseas, how many guys are messed up, and how much these guys are sacrificing."

For Schlitz, who doesn't have Kennedy's celebrity pulpit, the focus is on helping the people who are still coming back from the wars, whether the rest of the country remembers them or not.

"It's something you can't always talk about," he said. "That's where that disconnect comes with civilians and the military, because there's no way to actually verbalize it and have someone comprehend what you've seen and what you've done."

It's even harder to talk about when no one back home wants to hear it.