<CWO2 Charles F. Slavin, USCG (Ret.)
Charles Fredrick Slavin, 66, died Tuesday, February 25, 2003, after a lengthy and courageous battle with lung disease. A native of San Antonio, he was a decorated war veteran, a beloved husband and father, and a man who quietly and modestly helped his fellow man throughout his life, including saving countless lives and fighting for his country in a nearly 25-year military career. Born in San Antonio on January 8, 1937, he was one of eight children of the late Albert Patrick Slavin and Lillian Ackerman Slavin. He was educated at St. Mary’s Catholic School downtown, at Central Catholic Marianist High School and Brackenridge High School. He left home at 17 to enlist in the U.S. Air Force in 1954, and after basic training at Lackland AFB, he served at Bergstrom AFB in Austin and with an American attachment at Lakenheath Royal Air Force Station in England. In September 1958, he transferred to the U.S. Coast Guard, ultimately retiring from that service in June 1978 with the rank of Chief Warrant Officer 2. His career took him to many treacherous and exotic areas of the world, such as the South Pacific, the Bering Sea, the China Sea, and the Panama Canal, including several years aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Westwind, an ice breaker which helped clear northern Atlantic shipping lanes near Greenland and the Arctic Circle. He spent many years assigned to the New York City area and served as a U.S. Coast Guard recruiter in Newark, New Jersey. Other assignments took him and his family to Corpus Christi, Texas, Mobile, Alabama, Panama City, Florida and Homer, Alaska. In 1975, he was handpicked in a national search to be one of the first test pilots of the then-experimental hydrofoil search and rescue vessels, which are now commonly used in coastal areas of the United States. Slavin volunteered to fight in the Vietnam War in 1968-69 aboard a small gun boat during one of the most violent periods in that conflict, receiving many decorations for his courage under fire, including the Presidential Unit Citation awarded to him and his shipmates by former President Richard M. Nixon. One of his proudest moments was his selection to be in the military color guard at the state funeral of the legendary General Douglas MacArthur in 1964. After retirement in 1978, he worked for VIA Metropolitan Transit as a driver and later as a district manager of motor routes for the circulation department of the San Antonio Express-News. He is survived by his wife of 40 years, Susan Elizabeth Webster Slavin; three children: Kenneth R. Slavin, Albert P. Slavin II and Alice Slavin Gaiser, all of San Antonio; daughter-in-law Newell Holland Slavin and son-in-law George Nolan Gaiser, Jr., also of San Antonio; four grandchildren, and numerous brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins and friends. Visitation will be on Monday, March 3, from 5-7 p.m., with a rosary to be recited directly afterward, at the chapel of Alamo Funeral Home, 624 N. Alamo St. A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Tuesday, March 4, at St. Gregory the Great Catholic Church, 700 Dewhurst, with burial to follow at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.
06/28/04 Submitted by: Kenneth R. Slavin (son) kslavin@satx.rr.com
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