This is an IHeart podcast.

And we continue with our American stories.

For the past five years, Reader's Digest has been searching all across America

for places that have great stories about nice people. They call these towns the nicest places

in America. We partnered with Reader's Digest to bring their storytellers to our listeners.

And today, we bring one such story. And it comes from a small town in Minnesota called,

of all things, Fertile. And a native there tells us why her small town is one of the nicest

places in America.

Hi, my name is Linda, and here is why I think Fertile is one of the nicest places in the United States.

We live in a small community in northwest Minnesota population approximately 800 people.

Fertil has no traffic lights, everybody knows your name, and we believe our town has the biggest heart.

We have many residents in Furtle that we could talk about, that one man John Havdi touched all our lives in some way or another.

John was born in 1947, spending all his childhood in Furtle.

He graduated from Ferdal High School in 1965.

After graduation John moved to California and that is where he met his future wife

Darlene and they would go on to be married happily for 49 years.

In 1967 at the age of 19, John ended the army and was sent to Vietnam.

He did not need to go because he was his mother's only son, but he wanted to fight for God and country.

He was driving a personnel carrier and was alone inside the driver's compartment.

His carrier hit a mine and the explosion

ripped through the 3.5 inch steel bottom of the carrier. John did not know at that time that

his left leg had been blown off above the knee and his left arm just below the shoulder.

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