Pop. Something happened in Army National Guard Sgt. Jeff Putnam's knee. He stopped sounding off cadence, but he didn't stop running. He was leading his squad on a run, and the leader doesn't quit.

Putnam had yet to realize that that moment last spring at Fort Bragg, N.C., changed his future. It meant that he wouldn't go fight in Afghanistan. It meant that he'd say goodbye to his buddies in a hangar instead of boarding the airplane with them. It meant that the nine years he'd put toward a 20-year military career may have been for naught. That single misstep during an evening physical training run busted both Putnam's knee and his future in the military.

Not that it fazed him. No matter what comes along, Putnam remains stoic, steady, sedate. Like water, he keeps moving. When obstacles block his path, he eases by them, plodding on.

Hornets kept Putnam from joining the Army right after he graduated from Christiansburg High School in 1995. The summer before his senior year, he was mowing a lawn when he angered eight hornets and found out he's allergic to their stings. One afternoon after school -- months later -- Putnam paid a visit to the joint Army, Air Force and Marine recruiting office in Christiansburg. They told him that his allergy would prevent him from joining all three. His reaction, as usual, was one of acceptance.

"I just said, 'OK.' I figured I'd give the Navy a shot. How many bees do you see out at sea?"

The other recruiting office a mile down the road welcomed him aboard.

"I didn't know what I wanted to do and I wasn't ready for college," he said.

"I was real immature at the time and did a lot of stupid stuff. The military teaches you respect for yourself and others. And it meant meeting people from different places. And going to different places."

For four years he traveled the world as a mess specialist, or in layperson's terms, a cook.

He took his job seriously.

Fellow shipmate, U.S. Navy Operations Specialist 1st Class Joel Lolkema, now a recruiter in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., served with Putnam on the USS South Carolina.

"He loves serving his country," Lolkema said of Putnam. "If he had to be at work in the morning, he was the first person up, ironing his uniform super early. He took a lot of pride in it."

But after four years, Putnam had tired of life at sea.

"I'd rather be out there with a bunch of guys blowing stuff up than on a ship with a bunch of guys in the middle of nowhere," Putnam said.

When Putnam's four years of service in the Navy were up in January 2000, he was ready to go.

Built up leave let Putnam return to Christiansburg before Christmas 1999. He left the Navy with a Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, Navy "E" Ribbon, Armed Forces Service Medal, NATO Medal and Meritorious Unit Commendation. He bought a house in Fairlawn and signed up for classes at New River Community College. He had already signed up somewhere else, too.

The Guard welcomed him.

"I wanted to wear the camouflage. Shoot a gun. Play in the woods," Putnam said. He had grown up on Radford Road in Christiansburg, a few blocks from the Guard's armory. Childhood memories of weekend citizen soldiers stayed with him.

Just days after he completed his Naval service, he became a Guardsman and one of those citizen soldiers, first in Christiansburg, then in Pulaski. After four years, he received notice that his unit was to be mobilized for Afghanistan. A part of HHC -- headquarters of headquarters company -- he joined others from Company C of the 3rd Battalion.

So it was that a few days before Easter 2004, a dozen men were breaking in their combat boots. They were running behind the barracks on grass and pavement, over potholes and on sidewalks. Putnam, their sergeant, was shouting cadence.

"We already ran three miles and had another 20 yards to go when it happened. I wasn't really a sound, more of a feel. The pop and the stretch."

He stopped saying cadence.

Instead, he said a word he won't repeat now.

He then ran the last 20 yards and walked the cool down. He didn't think it was a major injury and went to bed. Overnight, his right knee swelled. In the morning, he visited sick call. X-rays showed it wasn't broken, so he was given crutches. After a week, he ditched the crutches and was sent back to work on limited duty.

"I was still doing the runs, still out driving the HUMVEEs, still packing the rucks. I was waiting to go. I had everything packed up."

June rolled around. Three days before their personal effects were to be shipped, Putnam had another doctor visit. This time, MRI results showed his degenerating meniscus and grinding retropatella.

Putnam was sitting in an examining room and watched a physician take out a rubber stamp.

"He said my knee was not well enough for me to go. He put a stamp on the paper. Med Board: Not Fit for Duty."

What may have been a devastating blow to another man, Putnam accepted. He knew his knee wasn't healed, he said. Two days later, Putnam received orders to take his stuff out of the trailer and told his buddies that he wouldn't be joining them on the other side of the world.

"I said this to my guys: 'I'm not going to put you guys in a difficult situation and end up hurting you and myself.' "

The same day of the stamp, Putnam had been reassigned to Delta Company, the medical hold company attached to Womack Army Medical Center on base.

His job was to assign quarters to soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq for medical treatment. About a month later, in July, he heard that the 3rd Battalion was getting ready to leave without him.

On July 12, the soldiers were waiting in a hangar at nearby Pope Air Force Base. That afternoon, Putnam went to see his friends before they left. He took a bunch of orders for Burger King and Wendy's and brought back food. Then he said goodbye and went back to work.

"I just left. It was still daylight, about 4:30 p.m. I don't think they left until 9 that night. I was still upset, you know, because you've got that feeling that this might be the last time I saw some of them. It was a lot of mixed emotions. Nobody would have thought we'd lose some. Every day, I think, that could've been me."

For the first time in nine years, Putnam didn't have a sense of what was coming next.

Working with fellow injured soldiers, he became fast friends with a fellow Guardsman. Putnam's cohort at Womack was Sgt. Chris Pinkerton from Memphis, Tenn. Pinkerton joined the Tennessee National Guard in 1987 and was also injured during a physical training exercise.

He herniated disks in his neck, he said, while training for Iraq and was assigned to Womack in the spring of 2003.

"Knee problems are a very common thing here," Pinkerton said in January. "The demands on the body are heavy here. Injuries during training are common."

Many of the incoming injured service members recently served in Korea, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Pinkerton said Putnam would bend over backwards to satisfy the soldiers.

"He'd come in early and leave late at night. The man is an extremely hardworking perfectionist," Pinkerton said. "He's a very kind, giving person. Assigning quarters, Jeff was the first person they saw when they came to Med Hold."

Everyone there was in a holding pattern, waiting to find out what turn their lives would take next.

Putnam stopped waiting in early October, when the Army finally sent him home.

It took four days to complete the paperwork necessary for his departure. It was an uneventful day. His house in Fairlawn was still occupied by his tenant, so Putnam went to his parents' house in Christiansburg. He went there for the weekend frequently, so there was no big welcome home moment.

He filed his DD214 discharge papers.

He went back to his old job in Fairlawn, screen printing clothing. But that job meant standing up for long periods of time, and standing hurt Putnam's knee. So he took a part-time job cleaning the screens, a job that let him sit down more often.

Putnam still kept up with his Navy buddy Lolkema, and told him about his injury.

"I know he was really bummed out and down on himself," Lolkema said. "He's the type who wanted to do 20 years -- guaranteed."

This past December, Putnam went to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salem for his "C and P" -- compensation and pension -- exam. The results of several hours of medical tests to determine what, if any, disability payments Putnam might receive.

Putnam's day at the VA started with hearing tests in the audiology department. He waited his turn in a room with two other veterans, men old enough to be his father.

While he waited, he reflected on his knee problems, which included bruising, fluid build up and grinding and popping as he went up and down stairs.

Putnam met with the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled American Veterans, which helped him make his claim to the VA. While talking to a national service officer at the DAV, he learned that they might have a job for him. He'd be doing for other disabled vets what they were doing for him: take information, help with eligibility forms, give information about benefits, send paperwork.

From audiology, Putnam headed down a hall, down the elevator, down another hall, through a wing with windows looking out onto a garden, and to the C and P area. His gait was slow, his attitude neutral. He sighed when he found out that this appointment would take a few hours. He took off his Army green field coat and placed it on a chair next to his bottle of Mountain Dew.

After about an hour, the nurse practitioner examined his knee. Putnam sports a tattoo of a wolf on his calf, a souvenir from France while he was in the Navy. On his back is a red, white and blue tribal design. On his right forearm is an anchor he got while in San Diego.

Nurse practitioner Beverly Gilraine explained the procedure.

"We ask how it happened and how it affects their life," she said. "We don't rate him." She watched as Putnam walks across the tile floor.

"It's not a normal gait," she said. He couldn't walk on his heels.

A week after the exam, Putnam heard from David Thomason, national service officer and supervisor of the DAV Virginia regional office. Thomason had a job for him.

Jan. 11, Putnam unfurled an Army Of One poster, ready to hang it in his new office. But he didn't have a frame, and decided to wait so he could properly display it next to his Navy honorable discharge and other certificates.

On his desk was a mammoth book with no page numbers. It was the Code of Federal Regulations -- everything he needed to know about filing a disability claim. Putnam is a departmental service officer, training to help disabled veterans who live further southwest than Roanoke. He may work out of a yet-to-be-determined office space between Radford and Abingdon.

His job is similar to what he did in Med Hold at Bragg -- helping veterans file their paperwork.

Pinkerton said the job is suited for Putnam.

"He'd be an asset to the former military personnel that comes in," Pinkerton said. "He's very compassionate, very caring."

Many of the veterans Putnam dealt with at Bragg were his age or younger. The men who visit the DAV are veterans of wars that ended before Putnam was born.

Thomason said veterans need a face with a name when they file a claim, and wants Putnam to be that face of the DAV for Southwest Virginia.

"Jeff's got that look of a nice guy. They have to be comfortable talking to you and willing to put their trust in you," Thomason said. "It's patience, and also letting them know that they have to be patient." New disability claims take an average of 14 months before a decision is rendered.

"You've got to be a good listener," Thomason added. "Sometimes they just want someone to talk to."

When his boss paused, Putnam spoke. "Just listening -- and not interrupting -- you can learn a lot," he said.

When talking about work, family, the military or life, Putnam speaks in the same calm manner. His words roll like a steady stream.

Putnam has found his place.

"This is being a leader again. That leadership experience in the Army will help me in this job. The part I like the most is being able to help veterans in the same situation I'm in. People that are calling know they're talking to someone who's going through the same thing," he said. "I'm much happier now. I've got a desk job and don't have to deal with fast-paced movement."

Putnam still feels pain in his knee when he climbs stairs, drives, walks a long distance or stands for a long time. He takes painkillers to dull it, but it's still there. For now. May 19, he'll finally undergo surgery on his knee. An MRI showed two pieces of bone floating around in there, he said. He hopes the surgery will relieve the pain.

"Things happen for a reason," he said. Putnam likes his DAV job, and plans to stay with it as a career. "Everything just kind of fell into place. I didn't expect things to happen this way, but they did. And they happened for the best."

For Putnam, going with the flow paid off.