Chief Warrant Officer Cornelius Olley and his family spent the years from 1956 to 1962 at Fort Slocum, where he supervised the ferry boat operations that served as the island’s lifeline to the mainland. Their second-floor apartment on Officers’ Row overlooked the Parade Ground to the front and Long Island Sound to the rear.

Speaking about class differences between officer and NCO families:

Absolutely. I mean, we lived on Officers’ Row…When I lived at Fort Slocum I only had one friend who was an enlisted man’s daughter and that didn’t last because we just had differences. And what was expected of me and what was expected of her were very different. And so my parents would kind of frown on some of the things I wanted to do with her.”

-Rivka Olley, resided at Fort Slocum in the late 1950s and early 1960s when she was 10 to 16 years old

(interviewed 2007)

One thing you learn as an enlisted person or the son of an enlisted person is unless you know somebody on Officers’ Row you just don’t arbitrarily start walking around Officers’ Row.”

-Bob Sisk, at left with his father and brother Tom, Fort Slocum 1958

(interviewed 2007)

But not all former Fort Slocum “Army brats” shared the same feeling of rank distinction felt by Rivka Olley and Bob Sisk.

Everybody knew everybody. And it was a very, very small, tight-knit community. Pete Parker’s father was a full colonel. Herb Bradley’s father was an NCO. It didn’t make any difference. Everybody just palled around.”

—Pete Fuller, a teenager at Fort Slocum during the early 1960s

(interviewed 2007)