SURFSIDE BEACH, S.C. (WBTW) -- Robert Main is a 96-year-old Marine veteran from New Jersey who moved to South Carolina 30 years ago.

Main told News13 about his experience fighting in the Korean War and what led him to the Marine Corps.

“I was just a young kid out of high school, and I guess I watched too much John Wayne and all of them people fighting," he said. "I decided I wanted to be a Marine, period.”

Main says he joined the Marine Corps in 1947 in Parris Island, South Carolina. At just 17 years old, he spent three months there in boot camp.

Main says sergeants would remind the marines they did not have their mothers or fathers to rely on anymore -- just each other.

He called it “tearing you down to build you back up.”

“Now that you’re nothing, we’re going to make you something,

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