‘Yellowstone’: Kayce Shares Tragic War Story and Twitter Is in Tears

Yellowstone peeled one tragic layer from Kayce Dutton’s tragic past during Wednesday’s new episode. The youngest of the Dutton children has previously kept his history as a US Navy SEAL to himself, but an emotional conversation with his father led to a heartbreaking confession that had fans sharing their feelings on social media.

Spoilers ahead for Yellowstone Season 2, Episode 5 “Touching Your Enemy”

The Paramount Network hit drama series’ latest episode saw Kayce (Luke Grimes) and the deputized livestock officers continuing their investigation into the cattle poisoning at the Dutton Ranch, hoping John Dutton’s (Kevin Costner) suspicions that Dan Jenkins (Danny Huston) was involved were correct.

After Dan and his armed security practice shooting in his property, Dan is surprised when Ryan (Ian Bohen) and Kayce ambush him outside his home and Kayce takes him inside for some unsanctioned questioning.

Things get tense when Dan’s security apprehends Ryan outside the house and forces him to give up his gun, his radio and makes him cuff himself and put himself in the trunk of his car.

Inside the house, Kayce tries to intimidate Dan into admitting he was the one responsible for poisoning and killing the Dutton Ranch’s cattle, but Dan insists he had nothing to do with the deliberate attack. Their conversation is interrupted by the security, who confronts Kayce and quickly disarms and leaves him at his mercy.

At the last second, however, Ryan surprises the room when he says the man failed to ask him for his keys, allowing him to go free and take the upper hand in the fight. Despite Kayce’s best intentions, Dan is certain that he had nothing to do with the cattle poisoning. After the tense scene, Kayce believes him.

Back at the Dutton Ranch, Kayce goes to his father and says he is convinced Dan was not responsible for the attack, and they talk about the violent encounter. John pushes his son to open up to him after noticing the pain in his eyes, which leads Kayce to tell him a disturbing story about his time at war.

Kayce reveals that in a covert mission to Pakistan, he and his crew were met by a man who had his wife and 8-year-old daughter as human shields as he fired rounds fro a machine gun at them. After losing two of his men, Kayce had to make the impossible decision and shot down all three of them in order to stop them.

He then says that his generation is not as likely to share war stories because of the terrible things they were forced to do to survive.

Fans of the series were shocked at the heartbreaking story, and took to Twitter to reflect on the terrors of war, hoping Kayce will start to get better as he continues to open up.

Yellowstone airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on Paramount Network.