The Road Home for Sergeant First Class Michael Schlitz
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 12 November 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, Michael Schlitz had already spent more than a decade in uniform when his life changed in an instant. On February 27, 2007, during a road-clearing mission, an IED tore through his vehicle in Iraq, taking brothers in arms and leaving Michael with burns across most of his body and the long uphill work of recovery. The months that followed were measured in surgeries, setbacks, and small victories that felt enormous.
He could have turned inward. Instead, he chose to keep serving. Through years of healing, Michael found purpose in helping other wounded veterans face their own fights. Today he travels to hospitals, bases, and community halls, speaking with wounded veterans about resilience and the hard work of beginning again.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:14.6 | This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. And if you |
| 0:23.8 | want to listen to our show, go to the I-Heart Radio app or listen to the podcast, well, wherever |
| 0:30.4 | you pick them up. Up next, a story kindly submitted to us by the Veterans History Project at the Atlanta History Center. |
| 0:39.4 | We will be hearing from Army Ranger Michael Schlitz, who served in Iraq. Let's take a listen. |
| 0:45.9 | I went in the military pretty much right after high school. You know, honestly, I was a little |
| 0:50.8 | immature. I knew if I went to college, I was probably going to struggle. |
| 0:55.0 | I'd probably party a little too hard and not really pay enough attention to the classes. |
| 0:59.0 | And I really didn't want to set myself up for failure. |
| 1:02.0 | Plus, I was just kind of floating around life at the time. |
| 1:05.0 | You know, I didn't really have the direction and really an idea of what I wanted to do. |
| 1:09.0 | And my father had been a Navy veteran. |
| 1:12.7 | My brother was already in the Army. |
| 1:14.7 | And at the time, I didn't know it, but he was about to go to Haiti for Operation |
| 1:18.9 | Uphold Democracy. |
| 1:19.9 | So my goal was to come in the military, do a few years, maybe come back out, go to college, |
| 1:25.6 | and then figure out what I want to do. |
| 1:31.1 | Came up with a military. maybe come back out, go to college, and then figure out what I want to do. Came in the Army in March of 1996. |
| 1:34.3 | Did my training here at Fort Benning, Georgia, Basic, and AIT. |
| 1:38.2 | Pretty much right off the get-go of it, I just fell in love with it. |
| 1:42.2 | I like the discipline. |
| 1:43.9 | I like the routine. I like the everyday challenges. |
... |
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