Mark Callahan

It is that time of the month, and of course a few days late as usual, all good.

The December 2023 Center Point American Legion Veteran of the Month is.... Mr Mark Callahan!

Pretty interesting story right out of the gates. Mark served in the Army 1970-73 as a Combat Engineer, however he didn't get drafted. Why is that? Mark left high school to enlist. His words to me were "might as well just do it now". He did go back and get his diploma of course, but he was one of the rare ones that took the bull by the horns and charged forward. With that, he was rewarded(?) by serving in the fire bases in North Vietnam right along the DMZ. Mark said you could see and sometimes feel the bombs being dropped in the north.  

When you are working on construction of combat positions, the mobility of vehicle movement and such you tend to get into some interesting situations. One thing that really sprung out of Vietnam was beefing up patrol and supply vehicles. Actually there is a great show on the Smithsonian channel just on that. They had to come up with ways to fortify vehicles out in the field from armament to fire power. A funny story Mark shared, funny to most anyway, is they were coming up with ways to add firepower to standard size trucks. One such way was putting a mini gun on it. If you don't know what a mini gun is, just think of a real big powerful machine gun that is typically on tanks, boats, helicopters and airplanes.  

Definitely not on the truck sitting in your driveway. He and the guys found out that if you fire it directly sideways out of the truck bed it will flip it, the truck, on its side. I can only imagine how well that went over with the onlookers. But if you don't try you'll never know, so it was totally worth it.

Mark is enjoying retirement now, married his wife Carol in 1978, two kids and 5 grandkids with one on the way. Interesting story with how Mark did meet his wife. He is originally from Indiana, after Vietnam he did what many did, got a motorcycle. Mark was out in this area and got in a serious motorcycle accident, wanted to utilize the VA hospital here, moved into Center Point and never left. Back to the motorcycle accident, his leg was pretty beat up, multiple surgeries and such. As his wife said, met him in his cast and married him in his cast. Mark had to wear that cast for two years... As I joked with her, he couldn't get any ideas and make a run for it.

For myself, Barry Hatch and John Meyne who went to give him this recognition. It was our first time meeting Mark and his wife. When we left we talked about how without a doubt they were a couple of the nicest people we have talked to and great to have a part of this community.

Both Mark and his wife have multiple family members that served as well. Truly blessed to have them a part of our community.

Please join the American Legion in thanking Mark for his service to our country and community 🇺🇲