John Paul McMahon was born in St. Cloud, Minnesota in 1947. He was the oldest of five children in the McMahon family. He got the first name, John, because his father, a WWII veteran who had been the navigator on a B-17 bomber, had lost his brother John during the war; and his middle name, Paul, was chosen for an uncle on his mother’s side, Paul, who had been killed in action during the war. John grew up and attended schools in St. Cloud, and graduated there from Cathedral High School with the Class of 1965. During his childhood years John had a best friend, Dave Nelson, who also graduated from high school in 1965. At the time, knowing that being drafted for the war in Vietnam...