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John R. Shelter

John R. Shelter

No. 2014621 June 1930 - 6 September 2003

Died: Montclair, NJ
Interred: West Point Cemetery, West Point, NY


Born in Glen Ridge, NJ, JOHN RAYMOND SHELTER was the son of Raymond and Marion Shelter. He attended public schools in Bloomfield, NJ, later graduating from the Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia. After briefly attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he was appointed to West Point in 1950.

John was captain of the Cadet Rifle Team and participated in the Sailing Club, Rifle Club, and Camera Club. According to roommate Peter Jones, John “had a little Retina-2 35mm camera, and he was good with it: striking pictures of Don Kirklighter doing his quite good impression of Robert Mitchum; Steve Avery at the sink with his electric razor pursuing that last fugitive whisker; geometric forms resulting from bright sunlight outlining on stark white concrete the black shadows of tarbuckets, rifles, and the outlines of the fortunate few at drill or parade; and a thin column of smoke rising vertical, but curled, into the still air of the room on a calm day.”

Jones also said, “John’s wry sense of humor was priceless. The worse things got, the wider his smile. One of our great successes involved Don Kirklighter’s smoking. The rest of us in the room wanted him to stop, at least in the room, but he did not. One evening, John got the idea to pull a couple of horsehairs out of a dress coat and insert some cigarette-length pieces into a couple of Don’s cigarettes. Later, Don lit up and soon the room reeked of burning hair, but Don noticed nothing new, only our normal reaction to his smoking. Later, John made the evening brew, heating water for Nestle’s chocolate mix with his trusty blast coil. This was a regular ritual for easing the pressure during the evening battle for tenths. When Kirklighter took a gulp, he was hit by the combination of the horsehair cigarette smoke mixing with hot chocolate. It was so vile that he jumped up, spewed out the chocolate, and howled that we had poisoned him. It was a great moment! John was also the first to realize one evening that our none-too-coordinated Tactical Officer had actually fallen UPstairs while hurrying to the scene of a possible infraction.”

After graduation, John attended the Infantry Officers Basic Course and Airborne School at Ft. Benning, GA, and served as a platoon leader there. Afterwards, from 1956 to 1957, he was a member of the Olympic rifle training squad and competed with the International-match Rifle Team and the U.S. Army Advanced Marksmanship Unit. As he said in the Class of ’54 40-Year Book, he spent “the most colorful year of [his] life competing the length and breadth of the U.S. shoulder-to- shoulder with the best of the finest civilian and military rifle marksmen in the land.” In the summer of 1957, he represented the Army in the National Rifle Matches at Camp Perry.

In 1957, John resigned from the Army and settled in Montclair, NJ. There, he established a successful printing and graphic arts business, Montclair Arts & Craft Press, that he owned and operated for more than 20 years. After leaving the Army, John remained close to his friends from West Point. According to Jones, he “encouraged my attempts to get published and sent me books he thought would be helpful or interesting.” In 1980, John retired from his printing business and served briefly as a high school teacher.

In the 1960s and 1970s, John was very active in the West Point Society of New York. Due to the anti-war sentiment during those years, there was opposition to Sylvanus Thayer’s induction into the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. John campaigned to overcome the opposition, and his efforts were successful. He also contributed to ASSEMBLY and wrote Earl Blaik’s memorial article.

An avid history buff, John spent hours in the library at West Point, researching the deeds of old soldiers and long ago campaigns, specifically the War Department events of 1917–18 and how they related to the Corps of Cadets and USMA. He had been a plane spotter for his community during WWII and was intrigued by all forms of military aircraft, especially the Grumman Widgeon seaplane.

John traveled often during the past 20 years, visiting friends and family up and down the East Coast. Some of his favorite trips included Massachusetts in the fall, West Point in the spring, and North Carolina to visit Fork Union classmates. One time, when he visited West Point while the Jones family was away, John “was thoughtful enough to leave what looked like a small snapping turtle on our back porch, presumably for the kids.” John was also fond of family vacations to the New Jersey shore and Southampton, Long Island, where he shared his love of boating and fishing with his children.

John was married and divorced and had five children: Stacey, Julie, Andrew, Matthew, and Amy. For the last 20 years of his life, John was an active member of AA, and he had scores of friends in the program. Before his passing, John was living independently at home, preferring to “die at home on his own terms than spend more time in a damn hospital being killed by the treatments.” Jones visited him at this time and said John was “still the same guy I met 53 years earlier, proud of his independence, still getting out a bit, and looking forward. We spent quite a bit of time on the phone in the following weeks, and his spirit was always intact. We even made tentative plans for going to the 50th Reunion together.”

John died at his home at the age of 73. He made his final trip to the West Point cemetery shortly after that. He is survived by two sons: Andrew, of Swarthmore, PA, and Matthew, of Newbury, MA; three daughters, Stacey Joyce, Julie Jackson, and Amy Budetti all of Upper Montclair, NJ; and 17 grandchildren.
 

Stacey, Julie, Andrew, Matthew and Amy

Originally published in TAPS JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2006

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