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Mark Berent's
Success Story
Interview with Mark Berent
When did you first start writing?
I first started writing when I was in the United States Air Force. I had had some interesting combat experiences. I selected one about a Python mascot we had in An F-100 fighter squadron at Bien Hoa Air Base in South Vietnam. I wrote it in a humorous style and was amazed when the Air Force Magazine accepted the article. Like all new authors I was quite excited to see my first byline. They then published two more articles I wrote about air combat on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos.
Shortly after that I retired from the Air Force and traveled internationally on assignment for the Air Force Magazine and the Asian Defense Journal as a pilot/reporter. During that time I wrote dozens of articles about various foreign military airplanes that I flew such as the Swedish Viggen, the Royal Air Force Jaguar and Hawk, the German Tornado and Fanjet, and trainers from Switzerland and Brazil.
During that time, I was living on a horse farm in Northern Virginia when I received a call from a literary agent in New York. He thought I should write a novel about my experiences in the Air Force during the Vietnam war. I put him off for several months because I really did not think I could write fiction.
Through circumstances, that I may relate here at a later date, I started to write. After all, I spent my Air Force career as a fighter pilot and we are known to take chances.
Who are your favorite authors?
I was a voracious reader starting as far back as I can remember, grade school probably. In later years I discovered John D MacDonald and WEB Griffin. Each influenced me in a different way. McDonald for his descriptive powers and Griffin for his episodic style.
For reasons I keep to myself, I have never been a Hemingway fan.
What is your writing process?
"Process" can be either the physical approach or mental approach to writing.
I had written all my articles in longhand which my wife typed out for me. It was a time-consuming process to correct and retype product suitable for submission. I purchased a computer with a word processing program and found I could compose on a keyboard though I am not a typist
My mental process for all my articles and books is quite simple; I see everything as if on a screen just behind my eyes and, if I listen carefully, the dialogue just seems to spring out. Sometimes characters appear from nowhere and I watch and listen to them.
You give up a lot when you write.
Of course, it is never that easy. I do outlines, character capsules, plot lines, and incredible research. In fact, when I wrote these books there was no Internet. I had to travel all over the country interviewing people, going to the USAF Air University library in Montgomery, Alabama, and purchase many books about the real characters in my historical novels.
What do you read for pleasure?
I definitely read for pleasure. I have always been a voracious reader but the last few years I have read mostly page-turners.
What motivated you to write about the Vietnam War?
Although historical fiction, my books are about the men and women who gave everything they had in a war they weren't allowed to win. I just had to write about them. I had to inform civilians exactly how it was for us on the line in the Vietnam war.
FAC pilots, Phantom crews, Thud, Hun, and Buff crews, gunship pilots and gunners, green berets, grunts, carrier jocks, MAC contract stews, boomers and tankers, from corporals to colonels; the whole nine yards about the day-to-day heroism and heroes we all know and loved . . . and some we hated. By way of contrast, LBJ in the Oval Office and McNamara in the Pentagon E Ring are included and the words they spoke as they picked strike targets over lunch are included in great detail, yes indeed. As are those of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden.
But there is the dark side of why I am a military writer. The dark side that surfaces in untoward moments when bad memories spring unbidden from a well I try to keep capped. Moments when others, not of the sky, hear my harsh laughter and see the frost in my eyes. It is the side that bears extreme malice and near-consuming rage toward those who wasted the lives of my fellow airmen on missions that accomplished little except strengthen the enemy's resolve. Missions that gratified only the arrogant civilian Caesars who, at White House luncheons, picked not only the targets but the bomb loads and the ingress and egress routes as well. It is the side that detests those members of the media who trivialized and scorned our efforts, it is the side that despises that wretched movie female who made broadcasts from Hanoi and called our tortured POWs liars, it is the side that bears hard anger toward some of our own men in uniform who saw war only as a career enhancing program. It is also of these contemptible people I am compelled to write.
My books have won critical acclaim from Tom Clancy, Chuck Yeager, Dale Brown, WEB Griffin, Steve Koontz, and numerous newspaper and magazine critics.
How old were you when your first book was published?
I was 58 years old. I wrote a book a year for five years to complete my Wings of War series. I firmly believe one is never too old to start a new venture. Remember Grandma Moses who began painting in her 80s. To take a break from my writing I started running. As a result, I ran my first marathon at 59. I kept running marathons up to my late 60s. Read my short story, The Graduate, and you will see I started riding horses after a 60-year layoff and wound up on a roundup in Montana when I was 74.
What else have you uploaded?
After I uploaded all five books, I decided to upload eight nonfiction stories I had written. I do not charge for them but include at the end of each a blurb about my books. Three of them are the articles I wrote for the Air Force Magazine. As you know, when a magazine buys an article or a story they retain the copyright. Years ago I contacted the editor and he was kind enough to return the copyrights to me.
