The Marines Said No. He Retired a Command Sergeant Major. | CSM Mac McAlister

Send us Fan Mail The Marine Corps turned him down at eighteen. Twenty-four years later, CSM (Ret.) Donald "Mac" McAlister retired at the very top of the enlisted ranks — a Legion of Merit, two Bronze Stars, and a Purple Heart, with five combat tours behind him: two in Iraq, three in Afghanistan. This is one of the most honest conversations we've ever recorded. Mac takes us from a self-described "heathen redneck" childhood in Hammond, Louisiana to carrying caskets at Arlington with The Old G...