A Father’s Reflection on His Son’s Dream to Be a Green Beret
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 17 October 2025
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, when Bob McLalan’s son told him he wanted to become a Green Beret, the words carried a weight that lingered. There was courage in the choice, but also risk. Every parent hopes their child finds purpose, yet few are ready for the moment that purpose calls them away. In this story, Bob shares how his son’s decision shaped their family’s understanding of duty, love, and the quiet bravery it takes to let someone follow a dream that could cost everything.
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:04.0 | What I told people, I was making a podcast about Benghazi. |
| 0:08.5 | Nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked, why? |
| 0:15.1 | Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies. |
| 0:18.5 | From prologue projects and Pushkin Industries, this is Fiasco, Benghazi. |
| 0:23.9 | What difference at this point does it make? |
| 0:27.4 | Listen to Fiasco, Benghazi, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:33.4 | Music This is Lee Habeeb, and this is our American stories, and we talk about everything here on this show, from the arts to sports, from history to business, and everything in between. |
| 0:57.0 | And we love hearing your stories. Send them. And we'll take a few of them, take many of them, if possible, and turn them into stories right here on the show and put them up on the satellite so you can hear them too. |
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| 1:11.7 | and anywhere you can talk up what we're doing. We appreciate it and so too does your station. |
| 1:18.6 | And now it's time for the McClellan files where we go deep inside the life of Bob McClellan. |
| 1:25.2 | Some of you don't know, but whose life and whose voice you're certain |
| 1:30.2 | to be captivated by. |
| 1:34.7 | While watching a movie with my wife in the family room one evening, we were interrupted |
| 1:39.3 | by our 16-year-old son Tommy, who walked in and sat down with us. |
| 1:44.3 | Politely, he said he had something important he wanted to discuss with us. |
| 1:48.6 | As I turned off the TV, I quickly imagined all the possibilities of something terrible, disastrous, |
| 1:54.8 | or difficult that could force a 16-year-old boy to sit down to talk with his parents about anything |
| 2:00.3 | important. My wife, with |
| 2:02.6 | her eyes wide open, sat silently while we all got settled in to hear what he had to say. I could not |
| 2:08.7 | remember his approaching us like this before, and my expectations, coupled with my imagination, |
... |
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