Marine Lance Corporal Mark Harper

[MORTARDUDE]

http://www.gomemphis.com/mca/america...833046,00.html Marine Lance Corporal Mark Harper
By Laura Coleman Noeth
noeth@gomemphis.com
March 23, 2003

Age: 22

Hometown: Memphis

Duty: aircraft mechanic

Deployed: Aboard an aircraft carrier headed for the Persian Gulf.



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The conversation Mark Harper had with a Marine Corps recruiter a few years ago sounded pretty good: Spend four years in the service, get trained as an aircraft mechanic, then serve a few more years in the Reserves.

Then, with less than a year to go before his discharge, there came talk of war. Now Harper is aboard an aircraft carrier on his way to that war area.

"The recruiter gave him a pretty good story, I guess," said Harper's father, Robert Harper, 54, who lives in Midtown Memphis. "He didn't want to go to college, so he signed up to learn something to do."

Seeing his only child leave after a visit home at Christmas was especially difficult for Harper because he's still grieving the loss of his wife, Jamie, 45, in July. She died of heart disease.

"He was apprehensive about going," Robert Harper said of his son. "He said it wasn't right.

" 'But, then again, I signed a contract,' " said Mark Harper, a graduate of Central High School.

While Harper's stint in the Marines is scheduled to end this summer, it could be extended if he's serving in a war. But his father is hoping for the best.

"I'm just taking it day to day," he said, "and just hoping he's OK when he gets out."