Havasu veterans | Leonard Schultz: Answering the call

“The man went down and counted us up and he said, ‘Right here, everything on the left side is the Navy and everything on the right side is in the Army,’” Schultz said. “There were bodies jumping back and forth because they didn’t want to go there.”

Basic training for the Navy was held in Great Lakes, Illinois. Schultz attended two engineman schools during his time there. Later, when the veteran was assigned to USS Carbonero SS337, he recounts that only two men were responsible for the engines on the submarine.

“You had to do it on your own and nobody bothered you. They knew you had to do what you had to do,” Schultz said.

After his four years in the Submarine Service were up, Schultz took a 30-day break from the service, only to rejoin the service once again. This time, when Schultz approached the recruitment office, he was not met by the Navy recruiter but by the U.S. Army scout.

The Army recruiter invited Schultz to join him for coffee and told him about the opportunities available if he became a member of his branch of service. When Schultz asked about enrolling into the Army’s Officer Candidate School, the recruiter said he would first have to gain time under his belt before heading out to OCS.

Following protocol, Schultz attended basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia and then left for Fort Rose, Washington. As his four years in the Army were nearing their end, Schultz contacted an acquaintance of his by the name of Hubert H. Humphrey about endorsing him for OCS. One day when Schultz was with his infantry division, they received a phone call from a gentleman, later identified as Humphrey, that notified Schultz’s unit of his forthcoming departure.

“They had to put me in a Jeep and drive me around. I had to take a physical, a PT test, all of that good stuff and away I went,” Schultz remembered. “I was on my way to Fort Benning for infantry school. 26 weeks of training. Two hundred of us started and 48 of us graduated.”

A memory from Schultz’s graduation day from OCS that he fondly remembers happened when he was driving through the gate of the school. The man standing guard saluted Schultz as he drove through the entryway.

“I got out about a hundred yards, turned around and came back through so I could get another one,” Schultz laughed. “That was the start of my Army career.”

The Vietnam War tours that Schultz engaged in overlapped from the years of 1966 to 1969. He reveals that the tours were not a topic of discussion and he had never made them known to others. After being stationed during the war, Schultz returned for a short tour he did in Germany.

In the 1970s, Schultz says that most of the reserve officers were sent home near the end of the Vietnam War. Since the veteran was on active duty as a reserve officer, this decision affected his status in the military.

“I had my application in and was accepted at University of Nebraska to finish it up and that would have given me my degree that I needed to become a regular Army officer,” Schultz said. “That didn’t happen so I got out and had to find work.”

While Schultz was stationed overseas in the Vietnam War, he sustained injuries that earned him a Purple Heart. Schultz recounts the supply missions that he had to embark on while he was serving as his battalion’s commanding officer. Ground units depended on Schultz’s battalion to bring them necessary supplies.

On one particular run that was planned, Schultz says that South Vietnamese friendly forces were in charge of clearing the road that was to be used by his battalion. When the veteran asked a helicopter pilot to take him up to scan the area, they were shot at by North Vietnamese troops who were along the road. The following day, Schultz says that he had no choice but to continue with his battalion’s mission despite the gunfire that took place the previous day.

The trucks in the veteran’s battalion were all equipped with M16 machine guns and other weapons including a mortar on one of the vehicles. When Schultz and his troops came under fire, he remembers grabbing the radio to call out. The driver of the truck he was in made a hard left turn which prompted the supplies to fall out of the vehicle. What happened next left Schultz with severe injuries.

A rocket hit the wheel of the truck that Schultz was in causing nothing but the axle to rub along the ground. The jerking motion that resulted from the blast flipped Schultz from the front of the cab to the bed of the truck. Schultz then hit the tailgate of the truck and landed in a ditch which injured both of his knees and ripped his clothes in the process. As Schultz was making his way out of the ditch, he saw a Jeep pull up to him. A colonel appeared and addressed Schultz, dismissing his noticeable injuries.

“He says, ‘We had a good day. Our kill ratio was nine to one.’ In other words, for every one of the Americans that had died, there were nine of theirs and that was a good day,” Schultz said. “In combat battle, that’s the way things are looked at.”

Experiences, such as this one, framed the way Schultz viewed the tiers that made up the Army. As an enlisted soldier, Schultz says he ate out of metal containers. When he rose in rank and graduated to an Army major, he noticed that his meals were served to him on plates as he dined at a table.

“I got out when I was 30-something years old. I never did mind what I had to do,” Schultz continued. “As you get promoted and your job rank increases, it gets easier and it gets better.”

Other instances that changed the way Schultz viewed the military, and people in general, happened when he came under fire and had to wait for a helicopter to retrieve his unit. Schultz says he was laying next to a man of color when the two men started giving each other words of encouragement.

“We were there for about an hour waiting for this to happen. He looked at me and I looked at him and he said, ‘Man, your face is funny,’” Schultz said. “We got to joking about everything. He said we were getting along pretty good and I said, ‘Yeah, we’re getting along real good.’”

Schultz now resides with his wife, who the veteran says enjoys traveling to the different restaurants that Havasu has to offer. Although Schultz is limited on his mobility, he continues to hold relationships with fellow veterans and meets with a group of men monthly at the American Legion.

“People who don’t accept life don’t accept a lot of things. I know when I see someone of my color who is being racist, I know that,” Schultz said. “I can tell. [My wife] can tell. We don’t have any room for it. None.”