I’ll add that for some of our time on the base my family lived right on the golf course, and I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to any of the golfers whose balls my childhood cohorts and I stole before they even quit rolling. And thank you very much for boosting our ten-cent allowance by buying them back from us. You paid for our Milk Duds at the Dahlgren theatre.
- Nancy Dearing Rossbacher

---

Dahlgren Base is my hometown. My parents moved there when I was 3 months old and I lived there until I was 21 and graduating from college. For kids this was like a country club living - pool, gym, playgrounds, movie theater. You could ride your bike anywhere and your parents felt absolutely secure that you were safe. Dahlgren School had the best teachers - you didn't want to be in Miss Dunnington's Dungeon!
- Wayne Hughes (Lived there 1950-1971)

---

What a place to live and grow up!!! As an elementary youngster, I thought every community had a pool (remember the high dive?), bowling alley, a community center building, summer programs for kids, playgrounds, and the safety of a secure community where kids could ride their bikes around for hours and walk to the movie theater alone. Those of you who grew up there, and now in your fifties or sixties, might remember the taste of the persimmons from the trees along the sidewalk, just outside of the fence at the area now know as building 1500. Armed Forces Day - Open House at the base - was greeted with great excitement. Many will remember friendships and fun made at the the pool and snack bar. Some will remember the BIG computer in K-LAB, the train rides, and the boom of the big guns, and the guards who knew you and your parents by name.....What a life at Dahlgren!!!
- Wanda Newton Atkins