Author Richard Mecklenburg

Quarter (n) Mercy; Surrender. As to allow the enemy no quarter. 

                                                            --The Winston Dictionary 1942

They say a picture tells a thousand words. The memoir "No Quarter" contains tens of thousands of words and it is a manuscript designed to be published in three separate volumes. Yet this story spanning decades originated from just one picture. 

Richard Mecklenburg was firing on all pistons. After a miracle acceptance to a local university and graduation, he walked into the CNN Los Angeles bureau from the street and asked Frances the receptionist about how to become an unpaid intern. Riding the wave of the O.J. Simpson murder trial, he was accepted as an intern and then began working in the studio as a camera operator, eventually becoming the stage manager for Larry King Live.

In 1997, Mecklenburg began an internship at the LA Weekly, just down the street from CNN. He was the first intern in his group to be published in the paper, and his first article was a full-page first person story about his friend who was on the FBI's Top Ten list. A major Hollywood producer offered to buy the story rights to produce his next film. 

Mecklenburg never really had much in life. What he had he gained through scratching and clawing. He was a climber. But if he knew he had one thing to cling to it was an uncle who served honorably in South Vietnam and was killed in action there. His father's half brother, Uncle Wayne would be a hidden inspiration and father figure for him growing up. 

With the internet in its infancy, Mecklenburg took advantage of the CNN control room computer during work breaks to research his uncle's wartime service. In time, he found websites  dedicated to 101st Airborne 2/502nd Vietnam veterans. He began emailing people who served with his uncle, although none could remember him. One of them said he remembered the day of his uncle's death, if only because his own good friend Peter Nolan died on that same day in the same firefight. This veteran had the after action report for the battle, which listed the exact date, time and location of the fight in which his uncle was killed. 

Mecklenburg's father never liked the idea of his son writing articles or working in television. He felt his son was star struck and disapproved of his Bachelor of Arts degree opposed to a science degree. But Mecklenburg's editor at the LA Weekly always liked his stories. The paper's executive editor praised his first piece and said he was off to a very successful writing career.

Richard Mecklenburg saw the idea for an LA Weekly cover story by traveling to Vietnam and visiting the exact spot of his uncle's death. Within two years he traveled to Vietnam on the 30th anniversary of his uncle's death, and was at the very spot at the very minute of his death on that anniversary. He was interviewed by Warren Olney from Vietnam about his project "Finding Uncle Wayne" which by this time included 16 millimeter film documentation of his trip that was filled with mayhem and escape. 

Mecklenburg' editor loved the story. He gave instructions on how to rewrite some of it, but was replaced as news editor at the paper and began writing books. This is when Mecklenburg realized that his stories were larger than films or cover stories. His whole life was a tale worth sharing, and he came up with the idea for a memoir. The name of the project changed from "Finding Uncle Wayne" to No Quarter," and Mecklenburg would see combat himself in the coming years. Dealing with the effects of combat on his return, he would overcome surmountable obstacles to keep his honor and tell his story. Eventually he found his true biological last name and the honorable service of his grandfather who was killed in action at Okinawa in 1945.