This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people.

And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to the Iheart

Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Up next, a story out of Clemson, South Carolina.

Today, the oldest a person can be if they wish to join the Army is 35, but for a short time

during the war on terror, one could join in their 40s.

Our next story comes to us from one of these men who joined late in life. Here's Ken Scar.

My whole life I was an artist. I was the exact opposite of someone you'd think who would join the army.

And I grew up in the 80s and 90s, which was a very peaceful time for our country. We weren't really at war.

The military was what was what other people did. I never even considered it. I always wanted to be in the arts,

be a writer, and I ended up working in theater and television for a long time. I was a scenic artist,

like for Broadway plays and television shows. We're the ones who paint the sets for plays,

drops and the murals that are in the backgrounds of television shows.

Yeah, I was always the art kid in high school.

You know, I was the nerdy little guy.

This was back in the 80s, like I said.

When I was in high school, I took art class like two or three times the day.

That was sort of my refuge because, you know, I wasn't one of the

popular kids and I got bullied by the football players, you know, like all of us nerds did back

then. So art was my refuge and so I was always artistically, creatively inclined and that's not

the typical type of person that joins the military. When I was

growing up the people that joined the military were like rednecks and people that

couldn't get into college. At least that was the perception. That was my

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