Dave Foster '98
Jenny Williams and David Foster are both members of the Washington and Lee Class of 1998. Jenny teaches English and writing in a high school near Philadelphia. Dave, a former lawyer and former Army officer, is the president of Cooper’s Ferry Partnership, an organization that’s revitalizing Camden, N.J. They met at W&L, married in 2002 and have two children.
Now Dave is deployed to Afghanistan as a member of the Army Reserves. And Jenny has written a moving essay about that signal event in their family’s life for the New York Times.
In the April 5 “Modern Love” column, Jenny details their post-W&L lives in Tennessee, when Dave served with the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell. “My friends were 24, single and living in San Francisco, Washington and New York,” she writes. “But as the saying goes, sometimes you don’t get what you want but what you need. I had spent my high school years naïvely bashing the military, so now I would live with a soldier in a military town.”
After they married, Dave left the Army, although he wanted to continue with the National Guard or the Reserves. Jenny resisted. “It was always easy for me to explain why the timing was wrong,” she writes. “Couldn’t he finish law school first? And what about the debt we faced and the promise of being grown-ups with children and money to spend?”
An accumulation of events and observations led Jenny to change her mind. Read why in her graceful column, "A Surrender to War, After an Uneasy Peace."
W&L bestowed the Distinguished Young Alumnus Award on Dave in 2010. And the Spring/Summer 2010 issue of the alumni magazine detailed his work with the predecessor of Cooper’s Ferry, the Greater Camden Partnership, which in both old and new guises often employs students from W&L’s Shepherd Poverty Program. You can read that article here.
Last spring when he was back on campus, Dave videotaped a Generals' Perspective. You can watch it below:
Very moving piece by Jenny in the Times. Beautifully written. Thank you, Dave and Jenny, for your service. Our prayers are with and your family.
Jenny's essay is a wonderful description of the how military families sacrifice and succeed in a challenging chapter of our Nation's history. Dave is a hero, and has deserved his recognition by serving when called. I can attest that his service is unique, as I enter my 24th year on Active Duty with the Army as a Colonel, with two deployments to Iraq, and a proud W&L grad. There's also Colonel Art Kandarian, and Colonel Mark Bertolini, both class of '86, who have 2 deployments to Afghanistan. Also, both heroes! Washington & Lee has much to be proud about in their gradutes, and Dave's example is just one of them. Glad to see the piece in the NYT.