Vietnam Veteran Karl Marlantes on What It's Like to Go to War

Bill Moyers: Veteran Karl Marlantes on What It's Like to Go to War
Wednesday, 01 August 2012
By Bill Moyers, Moyers and Company
Interview and Video

Bill talks to Karl Marlantes - a highly-decorated Vietnam veteran, Rhodes Scholar, author, and PTSD survivor - about what we on the insulated outside need to understand about the minds and hearts of our modern warriors. Marlantes shares with Bill intimate stories about how his battlefield experiences both shaped and nearly destroyed him, even after returning to civilian life.

Vietnam veteran and author Karl Marlantes shares how his battlefield experiences both shaped and nearly destroyed him. (Photo: Moyers and Company)

“’Thou shalt not kill’ is a tenet you just do not violate, and so all your young life, that’s drilled into your head. And then suddenly, you’re 18 or 19 and they’re saying, ‘Go get ‘em and kill for your country.’ And then you come back and it’s like, ‘Well, thou shalt not kill’ again. Believe me, that’s a difficult thing to deal with,” Marlantes tells Bill. “You take a young man and put him in the role of God, where he is asked to take a life - that’s something no 19-year-old is able to handle.”
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