Looking up to Mark (April Edition)

          Yes, you have the surnames right. Just so you don’t do too much guessing I am writing about my son. Writing about Mark Carpenter on this sunny day in March is not as easy as it may seem it should be. As I look out over the partially snow covered front lawn I asked myself what I was going to write about.

          Stepping back inside, I passed the hallway coat closet on the right and slid open the door. There it was tugging at my heart strings, pencil marks from Mark as he began recording his own height every year beginning in 1999. March 5^th of that year he stood at my chest. The following year, another 2 inches were added. I looked up to 2007 and found that he was easily a couple of inches over my head, where he is roughly at the present.

          Standing and looking at those pencil marks roughly placed I realize that I have my story. Mark Carpenter is a 2008 graduate of Boyertown High school who also marks a large part of the story in his high school life with a trumpet in his hands. Along with Hannah Liesau 2^nd Lt. U.S. Army (Georgia on Her Mind) he also played trumpet under the now retired and well known & admired Mr. Glen A. Brumbach.

          Mark was not limited to a trumpet in growing up in the Boyertown/Gilbertsville area. He was a member of Boy Scouts of America rising to Eagle Scout and the Boy Scouts of America, Venture Crew where he learned that he also loved mountains, new challenges, adventures and rising to new heights while he climbed with his friend Andrew.

          When it came time to further his education we, his mother and I thought he would go to West Chester University and pursue an education in music while playing with a U.S. Army band locally.

          We were proved wrong when he told us he was going to attend a military school. The school he picked was by how challenging it was. He looked at Valley Forge Military academy and College, Norwich in Vermont, Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Va. and finally The Citadel, Charleston, S.C.         The northern schools he quickly eliminated because he didn’t feel they were difficult at all and focused on the southern, latter two schools. We felt that Virginia Military Institute was a perfect fit because the band director did his student teaching both in the Boyertown Area School District and Owen J. Roberts School District. A trumpet player himself the two extended their interview and audition time into the afternoon so they could ‘jam’, playing jazz for a period of time after lunch.

          Mark was accepted to both schools and chose The Citadel to study business administration because it was again more difficult. The Citadel, VMI, as well as West Point and other senior military schools operate on the 4^th class system. The Citadel’s knob year lasts the entire year, making it in our opinion one of the most challenging schools.

          Mark played in the Regimental Band. He with the band represented the U.S. at the 60^th Diamond anniversary of The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo 2010 in Scotland.

          It was about this time that he told us that he needed another year of a language and furthering his French may be too difficult. Instead he took Chinese (Mandarin). The U.S. Army arranged this and the Dept of Defense arranged for him to take summer courses in China, where he furthered his business studies.

          We would visit Mark a couple of times a year while he was in Charleston, as well as he would come home on leave for holidays. During those times I recognized that not only did I look up to Mark in stature but also began to look up to the man that he had become. 

          The Citadel is a school where a student does not lie, cheat or steel nor tolerate those who do. Mark is the embodiment of those principles. In his senior year he continued to press upward with his goals. His first choice for where to lead within the U.S. Army was with branching Medical Service Corp.

          After being branched as Medical Service Corp. officer 20 slots for medevac pilots came open in the U.S. during the latter part of his senior year. With high recommendations from the ROTC program at The Citadel, Mark was awarded with one of those slots and following BOLC (Basic Officer Leader Course prepares an officer to function within their capacity as a nurse, doctor, medical service corps officer, etcetera) at Fort Sam Houston, during the fall of 2012, he reported to Aviation school January of 2013.      

          On a personal level, two years ago on one of his summers home Mark went swing dancing in Pottstown. While there he met Bianca Funer, of Nurnberg, Germany, who was an au pair in the town of Wyndmoor at the time. Two years later and the two have become engaged during this past Christmas in Michigan. They plan an October wedding.

          As this paper goes to press, 2^nd Lt. Mark Carpenter will graduate with his wings from the U.S. Army aviation center at Ft. Rucker, Alabama. He now has orders to report to Mountain Dust-off of the 10^th Combat Aviation Brigade of the 10^th Mountain Division, New York, as a medevac pilot.

          Looking again out the front door over the partially snow covered front yard I hear, then see a Helicopter fly over. As it passes under the bright blue hue I see in my mind’s eye, my son and know that yes I do look up to him, the man, the Army officer, soon to be husband, some day father, but always the little boy who tugs at my heart strings, remembering I’m ‘looking up to Mark’.