Mark Singleton – Coastal years.

If you were at Coastal during the late ’70s or early ’80s, you probably remember Mark Singleton, even if you didn’t know him. He was the guy who came to class every day wearing the uniform of the U.S. Marines.

“It was the height of the disco era,” remembers Lt. Col. Singleton, who retired in March 2004 after an eventfully distinguished career, “so I was definitely the odd man out.”

Singleton began his military career at about the same time he started at Coastal as a freshman in the fall of 1977. He had signed up for the Marine Corps Reserves when he graduated from Conway High School, and by the time he was a sophomore at Coastal he was also working full time as a USMC recruiter for Horry, Georgetown and Williamsburg counties.

The uniform certainly made him stand out on campus, but not always in a positive light at a time when Vietnam was still a fresh wound in the nation’s psyche. Singleton, a government and international studies major, remembers butting heads with one of his professors, “a tall, lanky guy I figured to be a hippie.”

But now he describes Eddie Dyer as “the man than put me on the road to righteousness. He’s a great leader and mentor, demanding but fair.”
Other professors who had a lasting impact on Singleton include James Farsolas, Tom Trout and John Vrooman. “Those guys looked out for me, cared about what I did, but everything I got I earned—which is good training for a Marine officer.”

Lt. Col. Singleton (front row, second from left) on patrol with members of the 19th Speical Forces Group in Ghardez, Afghanistan.

During the summer between his junior and senior years at Coastal, Singleton went to Officer Candidate School at Quantico, Va. He graduated from Coastal in May 1981, and he and another student, Greg Woodward of Conway, were commissioned as Marine officers as part of the commencement ceremony.

In his 27-year military career, Singleton commanded at every level from platoon to battalion and earned master’s degrees from both the Army War College (with honors) and the Navy War College. In August 1983, he was wounded while serving as a platoon commander in the peacekeeping force in Lebanon during the terrorist uprising there. As soon as he recovered, he volunteered to go back to Beirut and was there during the tragic bombing of his battalion headquarters in October 1983. He helped lead rescue efforts after the bombing, which killed 241 marines.

During Operation Desert Storm, Singleton served as a battalion commander, and he was decorated for leading a joint air and artillery raid against an Iraqi armored battalion. Since Sept. 11, he has been involved in the war on terrorism on several levels, serving on a combat tour in Afghanistan and planning tactical strategies as the senior Marine Corps representative for Special Operations at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School of the U.S. Army Special Forces Command at Fort Bragg.

Since retiring in March 2004, Singleton and his wife, 1982 Coastal graduate Sheila Harrison Singleton, have moved back to Conway with their children (Tara, a Coastal student majoring in elementary education, Mark Jr. and Sam). He is now working as a consultant on counter-terrorism strategies.