Dan Augustine

Updated 5/29/09

Originally from New Jersey. Known as "Augie" in the 78th.

Married to Joan, 4 children and 7 grandchildren.

We built a home in Fredericksburg, Virginia 6 1/2 years ago. We at first used it as a vacation home. Liked it here so much that we moved here 10 months later. The only down-side is that we don't get to see family as much as we would like, but we make it a point to get together at least on the major holidays.

Army duty:

July 1962 - November 1962, Fort Dix, NJ for basic training with a slight delay to recuperate from an Army-induced illness.

November 1962 - May 1963, 058 (ditty bop) training at Fort Devens, MA. Living in WW II era building. A real hole.

May 1963 - July 1963, 993 training at Vint Hill Farm Station near Warrenton, Virginia. Too many 058's for available positions, not enough 993's in the field. 993 training was usually held at Fort Monmouth, NJ, but there was no room for us.  About a dozen of us in that class. They set up training in a shack that was located in the middle of the antenna field.

July 1963 - June 1965, 78th USASASOU in Berlin. Did not particularly like the Army, but Berlin was the best place in the world to be stationed. Worked at Site 1 (Rudow) on C Trick. Very small site. Only 4 of us on each shift, except days. We had an analyst, repairman, and site commander with us on days.  Favorite hang-outs were the Old Eden Saloon and Tom Clare's Continental Bar on Hauptstrasse. I remember MPs coming in to the Continental Bar on many occasions to tell us that an alert had been called and we had to get back to our unit ASAP. We would get in my car and head up to the French sector. French MPs never bothered us. Best meals were at the French Officer's Club. And cheap!

June 1965, Aboard the USS Upshur on its last Atlantic crossing. After docking in Brooklyn, the ship went through the Panama Canal to the West Coast to start bringing troops to Viet Nam.

After the Army, bounced around for a while working construction (hated it), Post Office (hated it). Decided that if I did not get a degree, I might have to go back in the Army (perish the thought). Got a job with Automatic Data Processing, Inc, a company best known for processing payrolls for other companies. Went to Rutgers University at night. Stayed at ADP for just a few years :). Retired from there last year. During my time there I worked at a variety of jobs, my favorite being Software Quality Engineer (tested computer programs). Decided to get out when the company started to cut corners to push software out the door faster.

Now, I am webmaster for our community web site at www.FallsRun.org, and for 3 Civil War organizations:

    Rappahannock Valley CWRT in Fredericksburg at www.rvcwrt.org

    Phil Kearny CWRT in New Jersey at www.philkearnycwrt.org

    The Brandy Station Foundation Foundation at www.brandystationfoundation.com

I also recently completed a project at the National Park Service in Fredericksburg that digitized over 500 volumes of research material that the NPS Historians have accumulated over the years.

Here's a few of my Army pictures. The geeky guy in uniform is me while at Devens. The rest of the pictures are from Berlin. In addition, there are more Berlin pictures at

 ..\Berlin 1963 - 1965\index.html

Me at Ft. Devens	Dave Wong from Chicago	Neil Larson
My car - 1954 Ford	Me at the "Bakery" after the great tunnel escape	Brandenburg Gate
	Inside the Reichstag Building
	Dan & Joan at Ephesus, Turkey