Fletcher Slutman Jr. couldn’t help but notice the similarities between his U.S. Marine son Christopher, killed in Afghanistan April 8, 2019, and his friend from high school, Daniel John Jones Jr., killed in Vietnam, writes Mike Argento for the York Daily Record.

Jones was a pole vaulter, a Marple Newtown High School graduate, who joined the Marine Corps in June 1968.

He stepped on a mine and lost his life, July 11, 1969. He was 23.

Christopher Kenley Aldrich Slutman was born in Newtown Square into a military family.

Christopher was a football and baseball player and a wrestler in high school. At 16, he became a volunteer firefighter and was an Eagle Scout.

 In 2004, he went to work full time for the New York Fire Department.

Christopher earned a commendation for bravery for saving a woman from a burning Bronx high rise in 2014.

He joined the Marine Corps Reserves in November 2005, achieving the rank of staff sergeant, a respected leader.

On April 8, 2019, his Humvee hit an IED. He and two other Marines were killed.  He was 43.

 “It makes me hurt, and it makes me angry,” Slutman said. “It’s like their lives were wasted.”

Read more at the York Daily Record about Christopher K.A. Slutman.