This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

And we return to our American stories.

Up next, a story from Frank Skittoro.

Frank is the president of the Grant Monument Association,

which he helped revive after years of inactivity to protect the final resting place of General Ulysses S. Grant.

Let's get into the story. Here's Frank.

I began my exploration of Grant's life and career,

actually years before I started college. At age seven, my parents bought an encyclopedia set,

World Book Encyclopedia. I went through it from A to Z,

and I got caught up in the P volume in the president's article.

And over the years in grammar school, I devoured whatever I could about presidents as well as American historical topics.

And between the ages of 12 and 13, I singled out Grant as an American who seemed uniquely misunderstood and underappreciated.

And on top of the misunderstanding, there was a sense, this real powerful sense that I had

to have accomplished what he accomplished in one lifetime, in one career,

the military aspect during the Civil War, where he was the principal author of Union Victory,

and then two terms in the White House that the

same person had done both struck me as remarkable.

That's one reason George Washington is recognized as being in the highest echel of great Americans

today.

Well, Grant used to be in that highest echelon as well, but he wasn't because of certain historical trends that occurred during the 20th century.

And as I was late grammar school reading all that I could on Grant's presidency, the more that I read about it, the less I could appreciate or understand how he would have gotten such a low ranking in the eyes of historians.

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