Mark Gillespie(V)
Born in South Carolina, Mark Gillespie grew up in many different states within the U.S. as well as overseas in Germany due to being an "Army brat". As a youngster, he enjoyed watching the TV comedy series "F-Troop".
Gillespie graduated from prep school at Phillips Academy at Andover where he wrote and directed a short film in the spring of 1969 during "Perception and Expression" (a multidisciplinary class combining English with Fine Arts) as well as had examples of his photography exhibited at the Addison Gallery of American Art. He starred as Stepan Stepanovitch Chubukov in Anton Chekov's "A Marriage Proposal" and as a Cadet extra in the movie "MacArthur" during his college years. After graduating from West Point and serving as a company commander of main battle tanks confronting Warsaw Pact forces in Germany during the Cold War, he was selected to return to West Point to teach in the Department of History after graduate school at Yale University. Later Gillespie served as an Army Foreign Area Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Germany and as a senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense and his deputies. After retirement from the military and serving as a wartime defense contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gillespie was asked to contribute a historical perspective to the introductory short accompanying the 2007 release of the second season collection of F-Troop shows. Gillespie owns and runs the Army Polo Club in Virginia (2023).