Almost exactly thirty-eight years ago, a young man growing up in the Motor City heeded the "Join the People Who've Joined the Army" call and headed off on a journey that would begin in Army medicine and end in Army law.
From the west side of Detroit near the famous Eight Mile Road, Col. Mark Tellitocci knew his family didn't have the money to send him to college and decided the military was a good way out of the city. He enlisted in 1976 and headed off to basic training right after graduating high school in 1977.
Tellitocci started his Army career as a medic with hopes of becoming a doctor -- but quite literally, physics had a different plan.
"I liked medical stuff and figured I would go pre-med[ical]" said Tellitocci. "I started [school] but got a C in Physics and was told by my college counselor I would need an A and to take it again. Since I barely survived it the first time, I decided to switch to nursing since physics wasn't required."
Little did he know then that small twist of fate would lead him to the love of his life and journey partner, the now retired Lt. Col. Regina (Reggie) Tellitocci, to whom he has been married for nearly 29 years.
"Reggie and I met in the AMEDD [Army Medical Department] officer basic course in 1984. We were an item pretty quickly but I did not realize I was hooked until we had to part way toward our first duty stations…wasn't able move on to the next girl this time."
Shortly after saying their "I dos", he also realized that nursing had limited growth for him and decided a change would be best. He headed off again, this time to law school, where he thought his gift of gab and argument would serve him well.
"He waited for a bill payer," Reggie added jokingly.
However, this leg of the journey wasn't without its hardships.
"Law school was expensive on Reggie's 1st Lt. salary, and one of our hardest challenges," said Tellitocci. "But we got by."
His intuition proved successful. He spent the next 25 years serving the Army Judge Advocate General Corps and is culminating his career as an appellate judge for the Army's Court of Criminal Appeals.
Tellitocci speaks humbly of his achievements and said he never really planned on being a judge. He said he always looked toward the next job and wanted to do work that he was good at, adding, "it always worked out that way."
But there is one appointment is he proud of.
"I got appointed to be the Chief of the defense appellate division as a Lt. Col.," he said. "It was big deal to me. The job was always for a senior colonel."
When asked what he'll miss most, Tellitocci said the uniform and the pride of putting it on each day.
"I was 17 years old when I started," said Tellitocci. "I don't know how I would be without all the stuff I learned from being in the Army. It has helped to define who I am."
He added there isn't much, if anything he would change about it.
"Reggie and I have both worked hard and the Army definitely got its monies worth from us. But we've also had a great time and have got to go to a bunch of interesting places together," he said.
Reggie retired from the Army Nurse Corps in 2006.
"I would encourage anyone thinking about enlisting today to do it. There are too many life lessons to pass up, both the good ones and the bad ones," he added.
As a Soldier for nearly four decades, that's probably a solid opinion.
He is a Soldier who began his career as a medic at a peak time of the Cold War, just shortly before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and is ending it at as an appellate judge during a defining time for the United States, as it withdraws its troops from the same.
Tellitocci may have started his career joining the people who joined the Army, but one can only extrapolate that over the past 38 years, he was all that he could be, likely at times an Army of one, most certainly Army strong and coupled with his wife's service, the epitome of an Army team.
He and his wife plan to remain in northern Virginia and he hopes to continue his career with the Army or another federal agency.
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