Across the Miles: A True Fair-tale Love Story

Richard D. VanOrsdale is a 1978 graduate of West Point and was serving as a First Lieutenant and then Captain as the S2 / Intelligence Officer of the 3rd Squadron 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment ("Blackhorse") when he started writing to Jennifer Rae Shlaudeman, who was his mother's boss, and the youngest Asst. Operations Officer in the Colorado Orange Grove Branch of the Wells Fargo Bank in Pasadena, California. They wrote for approximately nine months, starting with Rich sending Jennifer one of his Regiment's Christmas Cards the Christmas of 1981. Jennifer met him at Los Angeles Int'l Airport when he returned to the U.S. He proposed 30 hours later and they were married three months after that, 04 December 1982.They are still happily married and have two adult children and two grand-children.