Karl Marlantes and the War That Followed Him Home

On this episode of Our American Stories, Karl Marlantes returned from Vietnam carrying memories he couldn’t share and questions he couldn’t shake. Like many who served, he tried to move on and focus on the next chapter of his life. For a long time, that seemed easier than explaining what the war had taken out of him.

Writing became his way through it. In Matterhorn and What It Is Like to Go to War, he began to put words to experiences that had stayed unspoken for years. Marlantes joins us to bridge the distance between surviving a war and living after one.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
And we returned to our American stories. Up next, a
story from Carl Merlantis. Carl is a recipient of the
Navy Cross and the author of the best selling books
Matterhorn and What it Is Like to Go to War,
two books he wrote after his service in Vietnam, a

(00:28):
service he didn't talk about it until after undertaking the
process of putting pen to paper. Let's get into the story.
Here's Carl talking about what he did immediately after the war.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
First of all, I hid, I mean, I avoided talking
about it with anybody because I did have the feeling,
and I think it's shared by a lot of veterans,
not all veterans, but I did have the feeling that
people wouldn't understand, particularly the dark side of things. There's
a thrill to war. There's a thrill to crack cocaine too,

(01:05):
and there's enormous, enormous costs. I would never want to
pay the cost to get that thrill. But to deny
the thrill is false. How do you tell somebody who's
you know, I don't know, I you know, somebody that
you're trying to date and she's a college girl and
you just you just come back. I mean how do
you talk about that. You don't because you're just first

(01:27):
of all, back in the Vietnam era, you would be
just you know, people really were horrible to us, you know,
like we were really criminals, you know, So why would
you even want to open yourself up to that? So,
I mean, I just you know, I never told anybody
that was in the Marines ord in Vietnam. Just didn't.
So that was one way of handling it. It's not

(01:50):
right because you've got to talk about it for two reasons.
One is for your own mental health. You got to
get these these ghosts out where you can see them.
My friend Joe bobro calls it turning ghosts into ancestors.
They're part of you, but if you don't deal with them,
they'll haunt you. I mean, the reason that you're getting

(02:10):
bar fights and your marriage breaks up and you start
doing too much alcohol is is because you're being driven
by a ghost and you're not conscious of it. You've
got to get it out. And one of the ways
of getting it out I did it by writing. But
a classic way of just talking to people, people who
you trust, and that would be like your spouse or
your brother or your sister, we didn't even do that.

(02:33):
And the other side is if you don't tell people
what they're actually asking, you know, nineteen year old kids
to do it for their country, they'll ask them for
really trivial both. I think half of the military is
from seven southern states. The people that are fighting or
you know, their mom and dad works for Walmart. They're
not partners in big city law firms. If you don't

(02:55):
get these stories out, and the people who are making
the big decisions, who and most of 'em have never
even been in the military, uh, will have no idea
what they're asking and will continue to sacrifice our kids
for really trivial reasons. Anyway, I I just clammed up.
It's the wrong way of doing it. I use it

(03:16):
in this analogy. Most men, I mean, I would say
N a vast, vast majority of men don't h understand
W and W. Young women who have not done it,
done the experience, what it's like to have a child,
what is it like to go through childbirth? If the
women who have gone through childbirth feel that they're somehow
superior to the rest of us, that's a horrible tragedy

(03:39):
for the human race. And luckily for us. The women
don't do that, but they've been through an experience that
young women and men have no clue about really, other
than what you read in stories or what you hear
people talk about. But if you listen to you know,
your mother or your sister or or y you know
in my age, your daughters talk about childbirth, and they

(04:02):
talk about it freely. You get an idea. You'll never
really understand it, but you get an idea. And if
it wasn't for that, you would have no idea. But
I think that veterans, and I often tell you know,
combat veterans don't leave that chip on your shoulder, because
it is true. I don't think anybody can understand it

(04:23):
unless they've done it. I just think that's just the case.
You can get close. I mean good storytelling, good writing,
you know, good poetry. There's been some wonderful songs. They
get close, but you'll never get there. And you and
I'll never understand really childbirth. The only people that understand
it once I've done it. It's the same with combat.
But the key is that that can't put you into

(04:47):
a category where you think that you're better than other people.
You just have had a different experience from other people.
And that's a very important thing to understand. Like I say,
I use the example of women who've had babies. They're
not superior to the women who haven't. And I think
that that's the right attitude, not superior inferior, just different.

(05:08):
And the you won't ever, I don't think you'll ever
be able to bridge the gap, just that simple. I
had to deal with this bronze star I got for
pulling the kid from out from underneath the machine gun.
I was written up for that, you know, you know,
did a heroic deed, brave deed in front of a

(05:28):
whole bunch of people, and so I got written up
for a medal. Uh, And I have that one. It's
on it's in the shadow box on the wall in
the living room. I had to deal with it. I
I wouldn't have been able to talk to you about that,
and without having written it first, because I the the
feeling of I wonder if I killed him. I wonder

(05:49):
if I killed him. God I could have done Oh God,
I don't know. I mean, it would it. It would
haunt me at night. I'd wake up in the middle
of the night, go oh Jesus did I put that
ball hold in it, and we'll never know, cause the
bodies were blown up. And uh, I wish, I wish
i'd've you know, I known then, I mean I I
you know that I I'll I'll never know. But having

(06:12):
written it down and got it got it out. I
I remember, you know, literally bawling and snot hitting the keyboard.
I mean, I was ball I wasn't crying. I was bawling.
You know. You know when you're balling is when you're
running out of you know, both nostrils it as well
as your eyes. Uh. And uh, writing it down got

(06:35):
it out, and I could examine it and take responsibility
for what I might've done or didn't do. Uh. And
it was clearly uh easy cause I after I wrote it,
first of all, I can talk about it without I
I mean I think that I, before I'd written about it,
i'd I'd just start shaking, literally start shaking it, I

(06:57):
I and it would have to shut up, couldn't carry on.
I don't have that problem. And I think that having
written it, the ghost is turned into an ancestor. It
doesn't haunt me anymore. Uh, It's just part of my life.
So the writing was important for for those reasons, and

(07:20):
also it was important for the other side of it,
which I said that people who haven't had the experience.
I wanted to tell our story, our story what nineteen
year old kids are trying to grow up and be
marines and be in combat all at the same time.
And it wasn't easy. And uh, you know, unless our

(07:41):
story gets told, no one will know. That mean I I,
this is kind of a funny story, but I a
woman came up to me at a reading and want
me to you know, it was the line to sign
the books, and uh, signing books, and she c her
turn came up, and she was sort of and I'm
really embarrassed and sort of hamming in halling. I don't
know what to say.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
I want to say.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
I said, what's wrong? What do you want to talk about?
I said, go ahead, and she said, well, you know,
I was in college during the Vietnam War and I
just hated it. It was wrong. I hated the war,
and I was a protester. I protested every chance I
could get. I protested. And then I read Matterhorn and
I didn't know you guys slept outside. I about fell

(08:26):
out of my chair. But you see there's a college
educated woman, college educated and didn't know we slept outside
in Vietnam. I'm going like, there's a large, large gap
between you know, the military and the civilians, and that
writing helps close it.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Monty Montgomery, and a special thanks to
call moor Lantes. And by writing these things down he
was able to turn ghosts into ancestors. But more importantly,
I think he was connecting warriors' lives with civilian lives,
just as Stephen Ambrose did with saving Private Ryan, interviewing

(09:09):
all those men and women who put their lives at
risk in World War Two. Call Merlantis turning ghosts into ancestors.
Here on our American Stories, leeh Habib, Here, as we

(09:30):
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(09:53):
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