My Father, Walter J. Schnack, 1969-1970

After a year in Vietnam, followed by a year at Fort Hancock*, New Jersey, my father received orders to Fort Hood, Texas.  We arrived in January 1969 to a house in Copperas Cove and no furniture.  My brother and I had the assignment of keeping an eye out for the moving van.  For days and days, we watched for that moving van!  We were sleeping in borrowed sleeping bags on borrowed lawn chairs.  We ate our meals seated on the floor.  We were living an adventure!  The moving van finally came and life settled in to work for the adults and school for me and my brother.  Come summer, we moved into quarters on Fort Hood.

The pictures below are all U.S. Army photographs and used by permission of  III Corps and Fort Hood Media Relations.  They don't really tell a story and they are not in any particular order but were simply a group of pictures I came across while going through a box of family memorabilia.

14 February 1969 Official Selection Portrait by James E. Wesolowski of Co. C, 142d Sig Bn, 24 ARMD

3 September 1969 The Army Times (front page)

 My mom, Irene Orvetta Cole Schnack sitting to the right of my father.

Retirement reception for 1SG Walter J. Schnack

*Fort Hancock was built in 1859 to defend New York Harbor.  It was decommissioned in 1974 and is now under the National Park Service.  Fort Hancock and its famous lighthouse might very well be the subject of a future post.