A Mormon Military Story w/ Army Ranger Ross “Marty” Martin | Ep. 1977

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 5.2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 December 2024

⏱️ 357 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This powerful and emotional story takes you through Marty’s life journey—from his upbringing in Mormonism, his experiences in high school and seminary, to his time in the military and beyond. Marty reflects on growing up in a trailer park, his mission to Jamaica, his struggles with faith, and his experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. He candidly shares deeply personal moments: battling depression, losing loved ones, questioning his beliefs, and finding peace through family, a farm, and humanism.Explore topics of resilience, transformation, and healing as Marty recounts leaving Mormonism, confronting the trauma of war, and redefining his spiritual beliefs. A heartfelt account of faith, doubt, and the search for meaning.

Show Notes

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00:02:30 Intentions for Marty

00:10:20 Growing up in Mormonism

00:24:00 The dynamic of his mother working and his dad being abusive

00:30:50 Interests in High School

00:50:30 Meeting his wife

00:51:20 Getting called to serve his mission in Jamaica

01:23:40 He joined the army without talking to his wife

02:04:45 Going to Afghanistan

02:22:00 Having their first daughter

02:34:35 Feeling the Spirit of Darkness while fighting in Iraq and questioning God

02:54:20 Catching Saddam Hussein and understanding why he did what he did

03:06:00 Reading the book Rough Stone Rolling changed his life

03:09:10 He delivered his daughter in their van by himself

03:14:40 Doing the Lord’s work at finding better ways to kill bad guys

03:24:10 Feeling unworthy to baptize his daughter due to his involvement in war violence

03:36:40 Finding Mormon Stories

03:41:46 Reading The CES Letter and discovering that it was not true

03:58:12 Leaving Mormonism helped him to not be so judgmental

04:18:20 Living a farm life has helped him find peace and connect better to himself and others

04:32:00 How he felt about the Mormon church and being in the military

04:49:56 Story of his father's death while in hospice and his belief in a higher power

05:43:20 Living his life by this new code

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host
0:04.5	John DeLinn. It is December 13th, 2024, and today we are going to be doing a military Mormon
0:13.2	story. We've tried to fill different profiles or, you know, life experiences on the Mormon Stories podcast. And for a long long long time, we've tried to fill different profiles or, you know, life experiences on the Mormon Stories podcast.
0:24.0	And for a long, long time, it's been requested to me that we cover kind of the military
0:29.6	experience within a Mormon context.
0:32.1	And so we found at least a couple people over the next month or two to interview. And the first person
0:39.9	that we're going to have tell their military Mormon story is Ross Martin, otherwise known as
0:47.1	Marty Martin. Hey, Marty, how's it going? It's going good. Thank you for having me. Thanks for joining us.
0:57.8	Really quickly, what branch of the military is you serving? I was in the Army. Okay. As a Ranger, right? Yeah, I started out as a Ranger down
1:04.1	first bat, Savannah, Georgia. And what's a Ranger? Aanger is part of the special operations community.
1:12.6	We were more of a strike force, so, you know, when the president wants something destroyed
1:18.6	overnight, he's going to send the rangers in there, so.
1:21.6	And that's what you did?
1:23.6	Yeah, that's what I did for part of my military history, yeah.
1:25.6	Okay.
1:26.6	But you also have a Mormon story.
1:29.1	I do.
1:29.9	All right.
1:31.2	Well, we're super grateful.
1:32.7	And you're here from what state?
1:34.3	North Carolina.
1:35.6	Yeah.
	...

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