Grave marker for Chester Ward and his wife Flora  in the Laurel Grove Memorial Park, Totowa (Passaic County), New Jersey. (Note: Although not inscribed on the stone at the time this photo was taken, Flora died in 2010)

Chester enlisted in the Army in Huntington, WV on September 1, 1942.  As a coal miner from West Virginia he might have appeared as an unlikely candidate for the band but he must have picked up some musical skills along the way. However, he served with the band until 1945.