Karl Arthur Marlantes (born December 24, 1944) is an American author and Vietnam War veteran.

[6] He won a National Merit Scholarship and attended Yale University, where he was a member of Jonathan Edwards College and Beta Theta Pi,[7] and played as wing forward in the rugby team.

Marlantes left after one semester at Oxford to join active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps as an infantry officer.

Sebastian Junger of The New York Times declared Matterhorn: "one of the most profound and devastating novels ever to come out of Vietnam – or any war".

[17] His next book was What It Is Like to Go to War, a biographical non-fiction work published in 2011 about his return to the civilian world and modern veteran life in general.