William Sutton remembers how angry he became after watching the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on TV in his school classroom when he was 11.

“I was pissed,” Sutton said. “I was mad.”

A few years later, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps at age 18 and was deployed to Sangin, Afghanistan, in September 2010 as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan that began in October 2001 in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“I don’t like bullies,” Sutton said. “If you’re going to come here and bully my family, then I’m going to fight back. So when they came over and attacked the towers, they were bullying my family. So I’ve got to take the fight to the bully.”

Sutton was a team leader serving with 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines as a machine gunner. He served with the battalion when 25 Marines were killed in action from September 2010 to April 2011 in the Sangin district.

He was injured on Thanksgiving Day 2010 after being shot four times and blown in the air four times by an improvised explosive device.

“We were in a firefight,” Sutton said. “And then I got hit and had to get carried away. And while I was getting carried away, that’s when everything else happened.”

As a result, he doesn’t have any feeling in his left arm and he has memory lapses.

“It’s hard for me to remember a lot of things,” Sutton said.

He is a Purple Heart recipient.

As a veteran service officer/case manager for the Veterans Assistance Commission of Will County, he wants to help fellow veterans get the help they need.

The commission serves the needs of veterans and their families in Will County.

“When I got back, I had nobody to help me,” Sutton said. “It was just me. So I made a promise to the 25 fellow Marines that I lost overseas that I would take care of my brothers and sisters, so they’d never have to go through what I went through. I treat them the way I want my actual family to be treated.”

The Yorkville resident has been working for the commission for about a month. He previously served for the Veterans Assistance Commission of DeKalb County and the Veterans Assistance Commission of Kendall County.

He also is a deputy coroner for the Kendall County Coroner’s Office. Sutton requested to work in the Will County’s VAC office because of the office’s plans to expand its mental health program.

“It’s going to be one-of-a-kind, the first one in the state of Illinois,” Sutton said.

The expanded services are part of the commission’s move next year from its current location at 2400 Glenwood Ave. in Joliet to a former medical office building at 1300 Copperfield Ave. in Joliet.