This is an I-Heart podcast.

And we return to our American stories.

And up next a story from Carl Morlantis.

Carl is the author of the award-winning books Matterhorn and what it is like to go to war. Paul is also a Vietnam war veteran and the

recipient of the Navy Cross, our nation's second highest award for Valor. But in 1967, Call was far

removed from the chaos of battle.

In a position of privilege, here's call to tell the story of why he chose to join the Marines

and why he later chose to go to Vietnam.

It was a series called Landmark Books, and I can't remember who put it out, one of the big publishers.

And it was like, the story of Betsy Ross and the American flag, the story of Thomas Jefferson,

and the, you know, all those sorts of things that were like written for like about, you know, 10 year olds or 12 year olds.

And I remember reading one called the story of the U.S. Marines.

And that just fascinated me, you know.

But more importantly, it was this thing, I mean, like the guys on the football team, the good athletes, the good runners,

when they left high school, they would go down to some mysterious place called San Diego, MCRD, Marine Corps Recruiting Depot.

And they'd come back, first of all, with sun tans, which we never saw where we lived.

And they would, I swear to God, they looked like they were four inches broader in the shoulder

and two inches taller.

And they would literally swagger up and down the main

street of our little town, seaside, Oregon, which was a logging town, a little town of about

2,500 people. And I'm 15, 16 years old, and I'm just thinking to myself, I don't know what that is,

but I want some of that. So I went to the Marine recruiter, and I'm talking, I'm talking to the Marine Recruiter. I'm 18 and I ask, I say to him, I said, you know, I've read, you know, books about the Marines, and I've seen John Wayne, the Sands of Iwo Jima and I know what the Marines do. They land on beaches and all that sort of stuff, but I said, do they do anything else? And he looks at me, he says, oh yeah.

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