NEW MIDDLETOWN — On a very basic level, Joseph M. Mersol is the embodiment of Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken.” Despite being the son, nephew and grandson of medical doctors, Mersol decided instead, as Frost would say, to tread down the “road less traveled by” and join the military.

The medical legacy of the Mersol family included his grandfather, who was the infectious disease expert in what was then Yugoslavia. The family managed to leave the post-war Balkans and the iron grip of dictator Josip Broz Tito in 1949 and resettle in Cleveland.

Mersol’s uncle Valentin earned his medical degree at Loyola Chicago School of Medicine. His father Joseph received his degree at St. Louis University and eventually opened his family practice in Struthers.

Mersol said there was no pressure on him to go into medicine, but it wasn’t always easy growing up under the influence of all that medical training and experience.

“I didn’t like being the doctor’s son, but I loved the doctor,” he said.

A family tragedy led to Mersol’s final conclusion that medicine would not be his future. In 1971, his brother contracted encephalitis and died. The memory, grief, and hardship were profound.

“Even the smell of a hospital would trigger me,” he said.

Mersol quietly admitted to being a “handful” for his parents in the aftermath of his brother’s death, so they enrolled him at Howe Military Academy in northern Indiana near the Michigan state line. It was there that Mersol not only learned discipline, but embraced it. In the single year he was enrolled there, he went from private to master sergeant and became the highest-ranking cadet.

From Howe, Mersol proceeded to Gilmour Academy in Cleveland for a year where his studies received the same disciplined treatment he learned at the military academy. He finished his high school education at Poland Seminary.

The desire to pursue a career in the military had a firm hold on Mersol when it was time for college. A Reserve Officers Training Corp (ROTC) scholarship was offered to him by John Carroll University, and it was there he graduated as the 1983 Distinguished Military Graduate while also earning a bachelor of science degree in business administration with a major in marketing.

After graduating from John Carroll, he entered the U.S. Army not only as a second lieutenant, but also with the Airborne Parachutist Badge he earned as a junior in college.

“It wasn’t easy being the youngest guy in (parachute training). They’d whale on me,” he said laughing.

Describing his career as a quartermaster officer, Mersol said, “I was a logistics guy. When people’s lives depend on your technical abilities, that’s what triggers me.”

When asked if his responsibilities were like having a thousand jigsaw puzzle pieces thrown at him every day, Mersol’s eyes widened and he replied with an enthusiastic, “Yes!” But he wanted to be the most proficient person in his field. “I would outwork and outstudy – do whatever it took,” he said.

Eventually, he had to learn to delegate responsibility.

“I always depended on myself. I could write, type, and do whatever better than anyone else,” Mersol said.

But he learned quickly that when the success of a vast operation is at stake, he needed to rely on others to competently assist in the mission.

“All the beans, bullets, fuel, casualty evacuation – all of that stuff ran through my organization,” he said. “(In a military operation) if you don’t have your stuff together, people die.”

As the quartermaster of a light infantry division, joint readiness drills with other branches of the armed forces were arduous. You had to stand ready and “never be more than an hour away from your base. You had to prepare based on the nature of the mission – was it forward offensive or defensive. You had to calculate and balance the weight of airborne cargo.”

There were details upon details for each mission, and it was common to lose hours — even days — of sleep, he said.

Mersol rose to the rank of major and enjoyed every second of his 11 years and three days of active service. He was highly decorated, earning the Defense Meritorious Service Medal (joint exercises), the Meritorious Service Medal with oak leaf cluster, the Army Commendation Medal with oak leaf cluster, the Joint Service Achievement Medal, the Army Achievement Medal with oak leaf cluster, and the previously mentioned Airborne Parachutist Badge.

Today, Mersol, 64, runs Mersol Financial Solutions LLC in Poland with his son, Bryan. He calls one of his programs SWAN, which stands for Sleep Well At Night. It’s quite in keeping with his military preparedness mindset; only now instead of soldiers, the benefactors of his caring are his clients.

Medicine was “the road not taken” for Mersol. However, for his family, friends, colleagues, those who served with him in the United State Army, and Joe Mersol personally, the “one less traveled by has made all the difference.”