Honoring Advisors Who Serve(d): Veterans Day, 2023

David Chepauskas

Title/company: Senior Wealth Management Adviser / Summit Financial, LLC

Branch: Field Artillery branch

Rank held at beginning of service and at end: 2nd Lieutenant / Major

Service dates: 1977 – 1990

Work you did: I graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point in 1977, as a Second Lieutenant choosing to enter the Field Artillery branch. After attending officers’ basic artillery course (OBC) in Fort Sill Oklahoma, I was stationed with the 101st Airborne Division in Fort Campbell Kentucky for five years.

Brief story that stands out from your service time: I commanded a field artillery firing battery for two of those years as a first lieutenant. After completing the field artillery officers advanced course (again at Ft Sill), I had the privilege of commanding the largest artillery battery in the US Army, stationed in Berlin, Germany.

This was a unique assignment, living in a walled in city over 100 miles inside a communist country (which most Americans did not realize), during the Cold War. The city of Berlin was surrounded by multiple Soviet Divisions, and we had a single Brigade; we were outnumbered many times over. Interestingly, we were able to travel through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin.

I often say that seeing a communist country in 1990 during the Cold War was perhaps the best advertisement for capitalism one could imagine. Crossing through Checkpoint Charlie from West Berlin, a bustling metropolis like Manhattan or Paris, into East Berlin, was like walking into a black and white movie from the early 1900s. The city buildings still had not repaired many of the bullet holes 45 years after World War II ended. The seeming attraction of an 11 to 1 currency exchange rate would presumably enable a 28-year-old to purchase things we normally couldn’t afford on a Captain’s salary. To our surprise, it apparently didn’t matter how much money we had available; there was virtually nothing to be purchased. The department store front windows would display fine German crystal and dishware, collectibles, cameras, etc. But when we went inside to purchase, we found that they were only there for show; nothing was actually available for purchase. People would wait patiently on long lines to buy rotten fruit. Shabbily dressed citizens drove East German-made vehicles which seemed too small to fit into. The primary source of heat was coal, giving one a headache from the fumes by the end of the day.

Upon completion of my German tour, I was accepted to teach on the West Point faculty, so I was sent for a master’s degree at the University of Georgia. As a faculty member at West Point, I attended night classes for a second master’s degree in business. It was there that I took a finance course, deciding that I wanted to make a career in finance.