Brief Personal History

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   I was born August 14, 1950 in Quantico, VA. My father, a career Marine, was stationed at Quantico Marine Base at the time and my mother gave birth in the Naval Hospital. My parents were both natives of Charlottesville, and the family has roots in central Virginia going back to at least the middle of the nineteenth century.

   My father being a career Marine meant moving frequently when I was a child. My father fought in the Korean while my mother, brother and I stayed with his mother. In 1954 my father returned from Korea and we moved to Englewood NJ; my father worked in the MSMC recruiting office in NYC. I attended kindergarten there, and then in 1956 my father had a change of duty station to Paris, France.

   We lived on the western outskirts of Paris for two years in a military housing complex called Petite Beauregard. It was just a few miles from the Palace of Versailles. I went to the first and second grades at an American school. Spending two years in France, even at that very young age, had a significant influence on my life. This included:

• My first introduction to a foreign language - French

• Traveling to many countries in western Europe

• Visiting museums, castles and other famous landmarks

 

   In 1958 we returned to the U.S. and spent a year back in Quantico where I attended the third grade. A year later my father was sent to HQ USMC and we lived in Annandale, VA. I went to fourth, fifth and sixth grades there. A big change came in 1964 when my father was sent to Camp Pendleton in southern California. We loved on the base and the closest town was Oceanside. I went to middle school in Fallbrook for seventh and eighth grades.

   The major development when in CA involved the riding stables at Camp Pendleton. It was a fifteen-minute walk from our house, and I discovered it soon after we arrived. I would go on to spend a massive amount of my free time learning to ride and eventually participating in the junior rodeo. At that time, Camp Pendleton hosted one of the biggest rodeos in southern CA. It was a truly amazing experience for me, and at one of the major events I participated in barrel racing with a crowd that was estimated at 20 thousand.

   In 1965 my father got orders to Hawaii. We moved there and we lived in military housing that was just outside the man gate to Pearl Harbor. I spent my freshman and sophomore years at the prestigious Punahou School in Honolulu. That experience was one that would have profound changes for me. This includes

• Attending a private school with rigid academic standards.

• Experiencing the greatest in my wife to that point among both faculty and students.

• I took my first Spanish class; I would go on to intensively study Spanish, it would be my undergraduate major at the U. of Virginia, and I would later achieve native fluency. It also led to my studying other languages and linguistics.

   

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