Mark Persons spent his 21st birthday in Vietnam, and he
credits his experience serving in the military and the training he
received for making him the man he is today."I wasn't a foot soldier. I
was on an air base, but we did have a few skirmishes on our perimeter
and a number of rockets and other explosive devices that came in, and
that's mostly why I'm missing some of my hearing," he said.The
72-year-old is a member of the All Veterans Memorial Committee, the
Brainerd Memorial Day Committee and the Brainerd Veterans of Foreign
Wars Post 1647."Memorial Day is really about honoring those who died in
service to our country, and a few people I knew did just that, so I have
a very strong feeling about Memorial Day," he said.The Brainerd resident
did not want to go into the military, but he said he knew it was a young
man's obligation to serve his country. And his patriotism continues with
his volunteer work as a photographer and website content writer for the
Brainerd Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1647.
"I knew that every young man's responsibility was to serve his country
and so I enlisted, and I enlisted in the shortest enlistment I could
get, which was three years in the Army," he said. "I wanted to get my
obligation over with, so I could go back to civilian life."The Duluth
native grew up in a broadcasting family and knew from age 5 he wanted to
be a radio broadcast engineer. His father, Charles B. Persons, started
in radio in the 1920s.
"I just followed in his footsteps, and it just seemed so right for me,"
Mark Persons said.His parents built KVBR-AM in the Brainerd lakes area
and WELY-FM in Ely, and he helped when he was a teenager. He joined the
Army in 1966 and taught electronic repair of weapons support radars at
Ft. Monmouth, N.J., before serving a year in Vietnam."It was a bad time
in our country's history. People didn't want to talk about it," he said.
"I worked with a guy for 15 years, and it wasn't until after that 15
years that I discovered he was a veteran, too. Can you imagine that? We
never talked about it because that's the way life was back then."He met
his wife Paula more than 40 years ago after he was no longer in the
military and was looking to buy a home. She was with the real estate
agency and they hit it off."I knew what I wanted to do, and whatever
needed to be done, I did it, whereas the average person who hadn't been
through any military training kind of goes, 'Oh, well, if I do it, I do
it, and if I don't, I don't.' If I say I'm going to do something, I'll
do it. ... The military taught me that," he said.He spent a year in
Vietnam helping to keep the high-tech Grumman OV-1 Mohawk surveillance
aircraft in the air. The two-passenger turbo-prop airplane carried
cameras, infrared cameras and side-looking airborne radar to spot enemy
movements under jungle canopy."My father served in World War II. My
uncle was a prisoner of war, and I'm a Daughter of the American
Revolution," said wife Paula Persons. "I've had a family member in every
single war since the Revolutionary War, so I grew up in a military
family where patriotism was important."Mark Persons said, "The
interesting part about military life is that they mentally, in basic
training, break you down to be nothing-and I mean nothing-and then build
you up to be a soldier or right kind of a person to take care of what
needs to be done. It's quite a process. It was difficult."The couple ran
a Brainerd business, building and updating radio stations, mostly in the
Midwest. They built 12 stations and serviced more than 100 others and
along the way he was named Engineer of the Year by the Society of
Broadcast Engineers in 2018 for his achievements."With the money we
earned, we shop local and buy American because that's so important for
our country," he said. "If you buy foreign, you've in essence given away
those jobs to a foreign country, so what about your children and
grandchildren? Can they benefit from that? No."He said he attributes his
hard work ethic and self-discipline to military training where
accomplishing the mission was the most important thing."My mother said,
when I got back, 'You've changed.' ... I think the military instilled a
sense of 'country' in me," he said. "I spent my entire 21st year in
Vietnam. I arrived just before my birthday and left just after my
birthday."Memorial Day is a federal legal holiday observed the last
Monday in May that has come to be associated with sales in recent
years."Many, many thousands of people have died defending our country
against foreign enemies, and people should at least come out to the
ceremonies on Memorial Day to help understand what this is all about,"
Mark said.Paula added, "And the sacrifices they made."
|
