Balconies to Battle Fields

My Dad has lived a full life in almost every way I can imagine. When I think of an adventure, he is the only person I can think of. From meeting the love of his life on the Ocean City Boardwalk, all the way to the deserts of the middle east fighting for his life, to the current day, being a great dad. With all the ups and downs, trials and tribulations, he has a positive attitude and general outlook on life.

His adventure started right out of high school when he had no money for college and no interest in grades, school, or discipline. His parents did not have any money to spare, and he was all on his own. Although he had some money saved from working at Church Farm School for the school year, he decided to go to senior week in Ocean City, New Jersey. He and his friends were hanging off their balcony and hollering at people passing by. Little did he know one of the girls passing by would be his future wife. Luckily for him, a group of girls had nothing better to do than come up to their balcony and drink lemonade. Turns out the cute blonde girl’s name was Jennifer but he decided that Jenny was a better name for her. They spent the whole week together, it “was like a scene straight out of a movie” Jenny says. After talking, the pair discovered that they both live in Pennsylvania and could see each other at home. So he spent his last summer before leaving for the military driving from West Chester to Lansdale almost every day making sure to pick her favorite flowers on his way every time.

He decided to join the U.S. Army right out of school. This was a “terrifying but necessary decision,” said Wiliam Peoples. Jenny knew about this decision and still loved him so they both decided that they would stay together. When he got to basic training in Texas he met a slightly shorter boy named Chris. They quickly became best friends. They got extremely lucky and stayed together for all of basic training and were actually deployed into Desert Storm together. They also got to work on the same tank and practically live together the whole time. They worked on an Abrahma M1A1 tank as loaders. This job entailed loading and uploading artillery at specific locations and using moving equipment.

One of the scariest moments in my Dad’s life was when their tank was traveling through an active war zone in Saudi Arabia. They were crossing through with materials that the main camp needed at night. They all had to wear night vision goggles and it was close to freezing. As they were moving through the active shooting, the tank was receiving fire from behind them. The tank next to them got taken down and some of their men had to jump into their tank. That was just one example of the extremely difficult situations that he was put into in the military.

During his service, he received a letter from Jenny telling him that she “needs to live life and experience college” while he was gone. He was devastated but continued persevering and making the most out of his time. When he returned home a few years later he enrolled in college at Penn State, which he could now afford from his GI Bill. Another thing he did as soon as he got back was send Jenny a letter to her parent’s house. The message was sent to her and they went out to dinner. The rest flew by and he is currently a Lt. at Montgomery Township Police Department and a great father to a daughter and yellow lab, in a happy home with Jenny of course.