Dave Slater left Asbury less than a week after graduating from high school, finishing in the middle of the pack of a class of twenty-seven. He enlisted in the Army and couldn't wait to shake the dust of this dead town off his feet. He headed to Fort Dix for boot camp, reporting as a scared eighteen-year-old beanpole, and graduated eight weeks later with the rest of Company C, a handsome and muscular one hundred and eighty pounds. He was transferred to Fort Monmouth for training as a photographer, then shipped overseas to K-Town--Kaiserslautern, Germany--where Europe's largest contingent of military photographers, lab personnel, and photo equipment repairmen were based. Four times Dave re-enlisted, eventually attaining the rank of Sergeant First Class. Besides Germany, he saw duty in Korea before returning to Fort Monmouth to serve as an instructor for his final year-and-a-half of service time. . . and now he was back home in Asbury.
Copyright 2005 by Bill Dolack