Kayla Williams on the struggles veteran couples face after service

Kayla Williams has had a harrowing look at what the consequences of war and the culture of the military can do to an individual, a relationship and a family.

As Iraq War veterans, Williams and her husband Brian McGough dealt with emotional trauma back home after McGough survived an IED attack.

"Essentially a piece of shrapnel went through the back of my head, burrowed the skull from the back of my head past my ear, out through where my eye is, and while doing this it also ripped some brain matter out," McGough told Fresh Air.

McGough came home with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. In her memoir, "Plenty of Time When We Get Home," Williams describes the struggles they faced to keep their relationship intact.

"I could always tell that it was going to get ugly when first he would switch from drinking just beer to drinking hard liquor, doing shots," she told Fresh Air. "That was an indicator that things might go bad. The clue always was when his face would just flatten. It was like the shades being pulled. He would go from having a more expressive face to just complete coldness and he would say, "You don't understand. You'll never understand." And that was when I knew some switch had flipped in his head and he had crossed over into a level of rage or something that he couldn't control anymore"

Williams joins The Daily Circuit to discuss her book and some of the pressing issues facing veterans at home.