DIANA FINLAY HENDRICKS

His Life in Words

Mark Hendricks
home. |  delbert​.  |    research . |   easy as falling... |  a picture's worth... |   buy a book.   |  stay in touch.

Iwo Jima: In Memory Of A Friend

7/26/2001

 
Picture
By Mark Hendricks (Hillviews, 2011)
Glen Cleckler ’50 and his wife JoAnn ’52 sit at the base of the Iwo Jima statue in Harlingen. One of the Marines depicted in the statue is Harlon Block, Glen’s friend who died on the island in 1945.

    From time to time, Glen Cleckler, 87,  still visits his dear friend Harlon  Block. He stands respectfully beside  his gravesite. He may speak to  him quietly, with a trace of a smile  on his face, about the perils of growing old.  But, for the most part, Cleckler uses these  visits to remember.
    And on this sweltering  summer afternoon on the campus of the Marine  Military Academy in Harlingen, it is no  different. Cleckler looks down upon his old  friend’s resting place and remembers. The  memories come easily, perhaps because they  comprise a story that is so impossible to forget.  The two were best friends in high school in  the Rio Grande Valley town of Weslaco. They  were young, handsome, athletic, and popular –  teammates on a conference champion Weslaco  High football team. Both seemed destined to  play college ball. Cleckler, in fact, had a scholarship  offer to Howard Payne. 
    But one afternoon in the fall of their senior  year of high school (1942-43), Block had a mischievous  idea. It was an idea that would tip the  first domino and start a sequence of events with  consequences both tragic and heroic.


Read More
4 Comments

    About Mark

    The child of a Marine Corps officer, Mark grew up on the move. A barefoot childhood on the beaches of Oahu, coming of age in the Commonwealth of Virginia, Mark made his way through five universities before settling in as a Texas State University Bobcat.  He was a news, crime and sports reporter as well as news editor for the Laredo News, and served time at the San Marcos Daily Record. After a decade or so in the newspaper business, he went into higher education communications, and has spent almost a quarter-century back at Texas State, where he is now the Director of the University News Service.
    When people as me what my husband does, I like to say that, "When news breaks, he fixes it." 
    He is truly the great love of my life - and without compare, the smartest and funniest person I know; an incredible father/stepfather, husband and son; a crisis management expert;  and a very  talented writer.
    He never ceases to surprise me with his knowledge of everything from sports trivia, and literature, to  showtune lyrics and movie quotes, as well as a host of other Jeopardy-quality topics.
    On July 9, 2003, we had our first date. The following January, he proposed to me at what has been determined to be one of the most romantic sites in Flatonia, Texas; we had a fabulous wedding amid family and friends on April 17, 2004;  and we truly have have been living happily ever after ever since. 

    Archives

    July 2009
    January 2009
    July 2006
    April 2006
    October 2003
    August 2003
    July 2001

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Stay in touch.

©Diana Hendricks 2021
dianahendricks@me.com
  • Home
    • things i carry
    • trivial pursuits
    • COVID Yard Work
  • delbert mcclinton
    • media hits
    • delbert official bio 2020
  • research
    • Billy Porterfield: Out Beyond the Buoys
    • Larry McMurtry: An Accidental Feminist?
  • easy as falling....
  • a picture's worth...
    • Music Makers
    • Southern Backroads I
    • Texas Gulf Coast
    • Texas Hill Country
    • Kaua'i
    • Odds and Ends
    • more than words
    • Texas Capitol
    • Wild Things
    • client feedback
    • services
  • in touch
  • Candles
  • mark's stories
  • Category
  • Home
    • things i carry
    • trivial pursuits
    • COVID Yard Work
  • delbert mcclinton
    • media hits
    • delbert official bio 2020
  • research
    • Billy Porterfield: Out Beyond the Buoys
    • Larry McMurtry: An Accidental Feminist?
  • easy as falling....
  • a picture's worth...
    • Music Makers
    • Southern Backroads I
    • Texas Gulf Coast
    • Texas Hill Country
    • Kaua'i
    • Odds and Ends
    • more than words
    • Texas Capitol
    • Wild Things
    • client feedback
    • services
  • in touch
  • Candles
  • mark's stories
  • Category