This is an I-Heart podcast.

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

Randall Wallace is the writer, director of films such as Braveheart.

We were soldiers.

Heaven is for real and a family favorite secretariat.

Movies rooted in courage, sacrifice, and faith.

These traits which embodied Randall's heart were exemplified throughout his life.

Here's Randall to tell the story of his father.

My father was the greatest man I ever knew, and he had a remarkable childhood.

His father died of typhoid fever eight months before my father was born.

So I suspect my grandmother didn't know she was pregnant when she became a widow.

But my father was not without a father figure.

His mother had a lot of sorrow and brokenness in her life.

She started a one-room schoolhouse in Lizard Lick, Tennessee.

That was where they were from. So I love to share,

the men and my father's family are Alton, Elton, Dalton, Lyman, Gleiman, Herman, Thurman, and Clyde.

Thurman's my father. And his grandpa, the father of all those guys, was Jake Rhodes. And my father told me that once his grandfather

leaned down to him face to face and said, I want you to understand something, Thurman,

I'm not a wealthy man, but you can walk into town and buy anything there by telling him you're

my grandson, because they know

I'll keep my word. And those stories were just profound for me. My father had no help with his mother

really had her hands full when he was in the in school, and of course they had corporal punishment

...