Dr. Richard E. Mezo: military veteran, poet, author, teacher, humanitarian

Germanna Community College Adjunct Professor Richard E. Mezo passed away at his Stafford County home on Sunday, July 6.

In addition to being a teacher, he was a veteran of the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force, an author and a poet.

Having been subjected to waterboarding as part of his military training, he wrote a 2008 op-ed column,  “Why it Was Called Water Torture,” that appeared in The Washington Post and The Free Lance-Star and provided first hand insight.

From Dr. Mezo’s bio on his Amazon.com author’s page:

Richard E. Mezo, a veteran of thirteen years of military service, entered the USAF in 1954 and the USN in 1962. He served as an enlisted man, as a supply specialist in the Air Force and an electronics technician in the Navy. His duties included overseas service in the Northeast Air Command in Newfoundland, on the U. S. S. Bon Homme Richard (the second one) in the Pacific, and as a flight crew member in a patrol squadron. As a radio/radar operator on the P-2V and later P-3A antisubmarine warfare aircraft, he was required to undergo survival training; his squadrons tracked submarines along the Pacific coast and were deployed to the Aleutian Islands.

Upon his discharge in 1967, Mezo attended San Diego State College for an A. B. and an M. A. in English; then he transferred to the University of North Dakota, where he was awarded the Ph. D. in English Language and Literature in 1978. In 1988, he returned to Western Washington University for a graduate course of study in Education, leading to his certification as a public school teacher.

Dr. Mezo taught English language and literature at universities, colleges, and high schools in the United States and overseas and on military bases. He has written and published several books and continues to publish in various magazines and journals, both professional and creative. He has been a College Board reader for the examination in AP English literature, a field bibliographer for the Modern Language Association, and a reader of grant proposals for the U. S. Department of Education. He is listed in Who's Who and in the Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers. He teaches composition, literature, and developmental English part-time at Germanna Community College's Fredericksburg Area Campus in Spotsylvania.

 Dr. Mezo was the author of a number of books, including:

•   Creating Poems: Introductory Writing Exercises
•   Concepts and Choices: A Writer's Companion and Personal Advisor
•  Essential Structures: A Guide to English for Readers and Writers
• "Fire I' the Blood: A Handbook of Figurative Language
• Hawthorne's the Marble Faun: A Re-Appraisal
• Nothing's Out of Place
• Recovering Argument: A Guide to Critical Thinking and Writing
• A Study of B. Traven's Fiction: The Journey to Solipaz (Distinguished Dissertations)