As I was recently reminded, May is National Military Appreciation Month…Oops! And did you know that May 1st was “Loyalty Day…never heard about that one before! Hmmm! I need to get out more! Also, May 8th was Military Spouse Day…even my wife didn’t remind me about that one! Now, I knew May 16th was Armed Forces Day. I had the honor of representing the ASMBA STAR Foundation at a disabled veterans’ event in Pensacola FL sponsored by the Independence Fund . This event titled the EscaRosaTK101 which was the subject of a previous blog post last week. At the event, I met some really extraordinary individuals and supporters that helped reassure me that the “American Spirit” is alive and well in the hearts of our veterans, active duty service personnel, their families, and the military community in which they live and work.
This event started me reminiscing a bit about my early childhood when Memorial Day celebrations were common place and not just a another day on the calendar. What Happened? Did you know that years ago Memorial Day was always on May 30th? I think the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) still have it right:
"Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed greatly to the general public's nonchalant observance of Memorial Day." -- on the VFW website Feb 2002
As one who can relate to Tom Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation” series, I believe it can be summed up best by sharing the story of a World War II veteran who laid it on the line and never stopped serving his country. Even though he passed in 2005, his memory and the contributions of him and many others, including my own Father live on. This is a short snippet about the legacy of one Arthur “Dutch” Schultz, a member of the “Greatest Generation.”
The following was written by Ms Tracie Troha on October 20, 2005 in a Daily Press article covering the passing Arthur “Dutch” Schultz.
He was a D-Day paratrooper, counterintelligence agent and former director of several drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs. His wife Gail said, "He had a really lovely life. We had lots of fun," Schultz said. "He was a man with a great spirit." Dutch Schultz earned a Bronze Star for his heroics on the beaches of Normandy and two Purple Hearts for combat in France and the Battle of the Bulge.
His other adventures as a counterintelligence agent trailing Roy Cohn, chief counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, and as a private detective in Philadelphia were among many other journeys that made him bigger than life, so much so that his adventures flowed onto pages of several books, the halls of museums and the big screen in Hollywood. Historian Cornelius Ryan interviewed Dutch for three books, "A Bridge Too Far," "The Last Battle" and "The Longest Day," which was published in 1959 before being made into the 1962 Hollywood movie.
Schultz is portrayed in the movie by Richard Beymer. Interestingly, the movie producers were so impressed with Dutch that he is the only enlisted man called by his full name in the film.
Schultz is also in three World War II books authored Stephen Ambrose, "Citizen Soldiers," "The Victors" and "D-Day," where one will find several pages graced by the heroic and oftentimes comical antics of "Dutch." Schultz, never one to stay idle for long, did research for Ambrose and director Steven Spielberg for the 1998 movie "Saving Private Ryan." His recorded voice can be heard in the halls of The National D-Day Museum in New Orleans. There Schultz tells thousands of visitors a day about his experience on D-Day.
Longtime friends of Schultz recall his larger-than-life personality and his humanitarianism. Longtime friend Joe Losi, a history teacher at Riverview Middle School in Helendale, said Schultz would speak to the students in his World War II class about his experiences during the war. "The kids were always mesmerized by him," Losi said. "Lots of them would stay after class to talk to him. He would get very animated. He would forget he was talking to kids. It was like he was talking to a bunch of old friends."
Todd Anton, history teacher at Heritage School , said Schultz was the "definition of compassion." "Through his struggles he made me realize I can accomplish anything," Anton said. "He told me that paratroopers always go one step forward, never a step back. America didn't just lose Dutch Schultz. America lost a big piece of itself."
Last year, Anton arranged for Schultz, an avid baseball fan, to throw out the opening pitch at an Angels baseball game on the 60th anniversary of D-Day. "He had tears in his eyes (when he threw the pitch)," Anton said. "I can't think of any better way to honor Dutch."
"We read a lot, talked a lot and traveled a good bit," Gail Schultz said. "He was a terrifically interesting guy."
In the eyes of one of his daughters she remembers him as simply “Daddy.” Her memories are captured in “Daughters of D-Day:”
In 1953, my father, Arthur “Dutch” Schultz, was in his late twenties and had the physique of the welterweight boxer and baseball player he once was. Tall, with mercurial blue-green eyes and light brown hair, Dad had a rakish smile that charmed every woman he met. I didn’t know at the time, but he had been the boxing champion of his 82nd Airborne regiment, and a combat survivor of the European Campaign in World War II, including a bloody and confused D-Day and nightmarish Battle of the Bulge. To me, he was just Daddy!
Dad was silent about his war experiences, only later did I realize that his war wasn’t all fun and games. The traumas that he experienced during his war years would haunt him for decades. During his life, he has been a fighter of two wars. When the young paratrooper descended from a flak-ridden plane into the dark Normandy sky on June 6, 1944, little did he realize that his survival of D-Day was only the beginning. Battling Hitler and the German Army would be finite. Not so the struggle for his psyche.
The World War II exploits of Dutch Schultz have been documented and are part of our nation’s history. Dad’s stories have struck a responsive chord – he has been cast as “everyman” and symbolic of the citizen soldier. Cornelius Ryan’s 1959 book, The Longest Day, depicted Dad as an eager, confused, and sometimes lost paratrooper dropped behind enemy lines on D-Day. In the 1962 movie version, he was portrayed by a hyperactive Richard Beymer of “West Side Story” fame. The movie program for “The Longest Day” called the character of Dutch Schultz the symbol of “all the men in the ranks who participated in the June 6, 1944 invasion”. Ryan further followed Dad’s march through Europe by including him in the 1966 chronicle of the final days in Germany, the Last Battle, the saga of Market Garden in the 1974 book, A Bridge Too Far.
Dutch Schultz was again a prominent figure in the recounting of that fateful day. In Ambrose’s subsequent books, Citizen Soldiers(1997) and The Victors (1998), Dad’s compelling oral history sparked the author’s continued interest and my father was again included. Ambrose and Dutch eventually became pen pals and the writer, in his letters, prodded the elderly trooper to write his life story because it demonstrated a journey that was both difficult and “inspiring.”
Television, with its visual impact presented an ailing Dutch Schultz as one of a select group of World War II veterans who are featured in documentaries on D Day anniversaries. The old paratrooper with the craggy, lined face, expressive body language, and oxygen tubing in his nose is still a compelling symbol.
She continuous by saying her family in the early 1950’s would fit that stereotype. Her parents were an attractive and outgoing couple with two cute little girls. But her family history is indicative of the dirty little secret of The Greatest Generation combat veterans. Her Father’s attempt to regain normalcy after the war was a struggle – one that affected his entire family. Our story is one of family tragedies including alcoholism, divorce and young death, but also one of triumph and courage by the survivors.
Most American servicemen who returned to our shores in 1945 had not felt the fear and terror of loss of their lives, had not seen or caused death and destruction, had not lived exposed to the extremes of weather, constant enemy shelling and seeing the torn and bloody bodies of their buddies. The unscarred noncombatant is the mythic World War II vet – who came back home, married his sweetheart, used the GI Bill to gain an education, the VA mortgage to buy the suburban home and to rebuild America to be a superpower. These were the intact families of her childhood – her father was giving his children the American dream he had dreamt about during his war years. These are the veterans that are lauded as having shaped the twentieth century. For Brokaw’s Greatest Generation, the war of their youth forged their strengths and was for many the defining point of their lives.
She goes on to write, “Dad has been recognized as a hero but he never identified as one. He tried hard to let go of the traumas but continued to fight a war within himself for years. He left the killing fields of Europe, but Normandy, Holland and the Ardennes never completely left him...In the still of the night. He would relive the horror of the war in his nightmares. Bolting from a sweat soaked bed, he would start to fire his imaginary machine gun, while alerting his buddies of the enemy presence...
Often and especially this weekend, we need to keep reminding ourselves that our freedoms come with a price tag and for those who have paid the ultimate price, as well as for those who continue to pay a price deserve our understanding and respect.
Dutch…Thank you for your service! God Bless our veterans and of course our active duty personnel serving around the world! We will never forget the “Greatest Generation” or the ones that follow!
Hi Joe,
Thanks so much for the post about my dad, Dutch Schultz, and the short piece from the Daughters of D-Day website. It's heartwarming to know that his wartime sacrifices are so appreciated.
Carol
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You're welcome! He must have been quite a guy!
jd
Posted by: Carol Schultz Vento | May 31, 2009 at 10:28 AM
Yep - he was quite a guy and quite a character. It was interesting to be a girl in the 50s and 60s and be raised by a WWII paratrooper with his 'never give up" attitude - he sure prepared me for anything life threw at me.
Posted by: Carol | June 01, 2009 at 04:08 PM