Jack and Jennifer Snider

Former Marine CO and DI
Enjoy Their Quiet Life at Home

story by LYNNE HUMMELL          photos by JENNY PHILLIPS

Jack and Jennifer Snider live a peaceful life with their new pup, Daisy, in a quiet neighborhood on Lady’s Island. Deer that live in the woods behind their home often saunter up to a birdbath for a sip, visible through a living room window.

When they aren’t working their full-time jobs, the Sniders enjoy the simple things, such as going to the gym together on weekends, an occasional dinner out, or just relaxing at home.

“We like to be almost homebodies,” Jack said.

During the week, it’s another story. Their civilian jobs keep them busy and immersed in the community – Jack at Marine Corps Community Services, serving both Marine bases, and Jennifer at the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.

When they go out for dinner, it’s to a few favorite restaurants, such as Morgan River Grill on Dataw Island.

Though they don’t travel often, one of their favorite vacation spots is Sanibel Island, FL, which was severely damaged last year during Hurricane Ian.

“We like to go down there, usually for a week, just to decompress,” Jack said. “Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll be going there anytime soon.”

The Sniders came to Beaufort through separate routes, but both because of the Marine Corps.

Service
Jack, 63, was born and reared in Spokane, WA, where he finished high school and went to Washington State University.

“The brother of a friend said, ‘I want you go down to this office and take the test.’ Honestly, I knew nothing about the military,” Jack said. “But I took the test, and a Marine says, ‘If you graduate college, you’ll have a pilot slot.’ So I said OK, but initially, I did not believe I’d become a pilot and felt I would end up in law enforcement.”

Jack went to training at Quantico in 1980, graduated college in 1984, and decided to take a commission in the Marine Corps, with a back-up plan that if he didn’t stay in, he would go into law enforcement.

He did become a pilot, with flight training in Pensacola, FL. Numerous duty stations followed (“We don’t have enough time to name all of them,” he said), staying on the West Coast for several years.

Jack came to Beaufort as a captain in 1992 and was stationed at the Marine Corps Air Station. “I had the great opportunity to be an F-18 squadron commander during the war in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said. He also did tours in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.

Jack completed multiple assignments in Beaufort and came back for good in 2008. Upon his return, he was named commander at MCAS, a post he held for three years until he retired as a colonel in 2011 with 28 years of active-duty service.

Jennifer, 53, was born in Connecticut, and because her father was in the Navy, reared as a military brat, with her family moving to St. Mary’s, GA, when she was 9. She graduated high school there and attended two years of college.

“When I told my father I was going into the Marine Corps, he said, ‘Thank God, because women don’t belong in the Navy,” Jennifer said with a chuckle.

She signed up at age 22 in King’s Bay, GA, and arrived at Parris Island for boot camp in September 1992.

As a graphic illustrator, Jennifer then went to Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, where personnel from every branch of the service went for any kind of audiovisual training. After three months, she was back on the East Coast in Washington, DC, for three years at the Marine Corps Institute, Marine Barracks 8th and I.

From 1996 to 1998, she was at Quantico headquarters in their audiovisual department. In the summer 1998, she tried out and was chosen to become a physical training instructor for Quantico’s Officer Candidate School. She taught two, six-week sessions for two female platoons.

“That was fun,” Jennifer said.

The experience also helped her prepare for the next step in her career.

“I had already reenlisted, with orders for the drill field,” Jennifer said, “and I came down here in September of that year for drill instructor school.” She spent the next three years as a DI at Parris Island.

It was during this time that a Marin photographer happened to take a photo of Jennifer at work on the drill field.

“We weren’t really paying them any attention, but they were taking pictures, and I was oblivious,” she said. “We were just out there doing our jobs.”

A short time later, a fellow DI told her, “Hey, you’re going to be in trouble. Your picture’s on the cover of a magazine.”

“I thought he was just messing with me,” Jennifer said.

He said he put a copy on the windshield of her car. Sure enough, there it was, an issue of Fourth Forum, a magazine for the 4th recruiting district of Pennsylvania, and there she was – on the cover – pointing her finger in a recruit’s face while yelling at the platoon.

“I thought I would get in trouble because the rule of thumb is that we stay an arm’s distance from a recruit,” Jennifer said.

Thankfully, there was no official discipline.

Jennifer sent the magazine to the man she was dating, also a graphic illustrator, in Arizona. He managed to get a negative of the cover photo and made a poster of it.

By the early 2000s, Jennifer had married the guy, left the Corps, and they had bought a small sign shop in Beaufort. On a wall hung the magazine cover poster.

One day, Chuck Taliano, a resident of Beaufort, walked into the shop. Some people might not recognize the name but might recognize an image of him. His face is on the famous 1970s Marine Corps recruiting poster, snarling up at the face of a Marine taller than him. On it was printed, “We don’t promise you a rose garden.”

“He came in one day, saw the poster of me, and said, ‘I want that,’” Jennifer said.

The retired Marine (now deceased) ran the gift shop on Parris Island and wanted to create a recruiting poster for women similar to his. Taliano got all the necessary permissions and created a poster that reads, “We don’t promise you a rose garden either.”

The poster is still available at the Parris Island Museum Gift Shop, the Marine Corps Association shop in Quantico, and on its website, marineshop.net. A few years ago, an image of the poster appeared in a book titled “Through Women’s Eyes,” a textbook about women’s history.

Jennifer left the Corps in 2001 as a staff sergeant after nine years of service. She and her then-husband ran the sign shop for a couple of years, then divorced.

Family life
Jack and Jennifer met at a fundraiser in Jack’s third year of command at MCAS.

“I don’t think it was a setup, but it was kind of a setup,” Jack said. He had told some friends he would be there, but his time was limited.

The friends introduced Jennifer to Jack, and they talked for 30 minutes. They started dating shortly after that.

“We met on December 6, 2010, and we married on April 15, 2011,” Jack said. “It wasn’t a long time between, but I was in my 50s, and Jennifer was in her 40s, and we had both kind of figured ourselves out by then, so that makes a difference.”

Civilian work
When Jack retired from the military, he went to work for Beaufort County School District for two years, setting up an aviation-type program at Battery Creek High School. He got the program going, but then there was nowhere else in the District he could work.

“So, I ended up going back on the military bases and working there for the last ten years supporting the Marines and their families,” he said.

Jack works for Marine Corps Community Services, a Marine Corps company that provides all the services on base, like retail stores, gyms, childcare, counseling services, bowling alleys, movie theaters, hotels, and such.

“We almost run like a small city, if you will, on both bases,” Jack said. He drives from one to the other on his motorcycle.

Jennifer’s path following the military led her back into service. She joined the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Department in 2009, where she spent time on patrol and currently works as an investigator in Northern Beaufort County.

“I am also on the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force,” she said, having served since 2016.

The bright spot for Jennifer in the often-negative world of law enforcement is when the victims have a positive outcome. “Yes, I work for an elected official,” she said, “but I also work for the citizens of Beaufort County. I work for the victims who come in. If I can help give them something positive at the end (of a case), that’s what makes me feel good.”

More family
Recently, Jack got the surprise of his life.

He knew from a young age that he was adopted at birth. About five years ago, Jennifer bought him a 23andMe DNA testing kit to learn about his genetics and any relatives who had also registered.
He was later contacted by someone who said they thought they knew who his mother was, but the conversation ended soon after it began.

This past December, “I get a note from 23andMe, from a young man who said my name is Abe … and you and I are a DNA match,” Jack said. Abe said his dad had a cousin who was adopted at birth, and he thought it might be Jack.

“I said, ‘yeah, that’s me.’ I had already figured out I was part of that family,” Jack said, “though I wasn’t really searching hard.”

Abe told his dad, and his dad called Jack’s sister, who called his mother.

“I talked to my biological mother for the first time in my life on Christmas Day last year,” Jack said. “And she and I still contact each other weekly.”

He learned that he has four biological siblings, most of whom are still in Spokane. His mother is 80, married, and still in Spokane as well.

Jack and Jennifer flew to meet their new family this past summer and thoroughly enjoyed their three-day stay.

“That was kind of unique that at 63 years old, I got to meet my real mother, and at 80, she got to meet me,” Jack said. “She didn’t want us to leave – and we didn’t want to leave.”

He learned that he and his biological siblings had lived just a few blocks apart – and went to the same Catholic school at the same time.”

“I asked my sister, ‘Where did you live in Spokane?’ and she goes, ‘We lived on North Maple,’ and I said, ‘I lived on Hawthorne,” Jack recalled. “She said, ‘I went to St. Francis,’ and I said, ‘So did I.’”

He learned that he and his oldest two sisters are only three and four years apart. “So, I was at that school at the same time with two of my sisters. And, in my adoptive family, one of my brothers used to hang out at their house,” Jack said.

His biological mother told him it had been a Catholic adoption, and she had no information about him or his adoptive parents.

Community
“I think Jennifer and I represent a lot of what you see throughout this whole community – two people that were in the service then retired here,” Jack said. “And we still try to contribute to Beaufort as a whole.”

“We’ll retire in five years,” he said, “and I think we’ll feel good that we gave back to our community and our country to the best of our ability.”