My Muse Returns!

“LOST MUSKET DIARY” Friday January 9, 2015

Cloudy: 69°F/21°C in Rancho Santa Margarita

Buongiorno,

                To my surprise, I received a “get well” card from my periodontist yesterday. Strange, I thought, I didn’t realize anyone else knew I was sick. (For those of you who read my blog, you may have noticed that I haven’t posted anything new since December 7^th. Pearl Harbor Day. Well, that is one reason. Another is the anxiety I’ve been experiencing as a lead-up to the shoulder joint replacement surgery that was originally scheduled for January 6^th. (Nothing, like the prospect of having someone cut your shoulder open and take a Skil saw to your clavicle, scapula and humerus, to break you out in a cold sweat in the middle of the night). Between the new titanium shoulder joint and the silver amalgam fillings in my teeth, the airport metal detector should sound like a symphony orchestra on my next jaunt through LAX. (Damn! I wish I could take Amtrak to Rome, instead of Air Sardine). I promptly emailed my periodontist to thank him and his staff for their consideration, and told him that I was putting the Christmas cards away and holding his “shoulder joint replacement recuperation card” for the appropriate moment, and buying myself a “get well from the flu” card to put on my table top. I owe Dr. Chrispens a lot. I’m already over 70, but still have all my own teeth – minus four wisdom teeth.

                The doctor I saw for my “viral condition” last week was subbing for my regular guy, who, it was rumored was out sick with the flu. My HMO does everything but track their older patients down and restrain them until they get their annual flu shot. This year though, the pharmaceutical companies managed to turn out huge batches of vaccine that was only about 34% effective against this year’s strain of influenza. (Probably too busy lobbying Congress to prepare an effective vaccine). This year I not only got my flu shot, but a pneumonia booster as well.

Captain Harry N. Schultz

                I think it was Mark Twain who said, “first thing I do when I wake up in the morning, is to pick up the newspaper and turn to the obituary pages, and, if I do not see my name, I get dressed and have breakfast.” So, yesterday after typing my name into the Google web site, I concluded that I was still alive, so I made a pot of coffee and took Lola downstairs for her morning watering. (Blogspot December 7, 2014). Like so many of us, Kelly Schultz, retired Navy Corpsman and school teacher, periodically carried out random Googles as part of his daily internet surfing sessions. His latest Google has led him to my blog account of his uncle’s heroism during the U boat attack on his convoy off the coast of England in 1944. When we finally hung up the phone, I discovered that my muse, that fickle scamp, had returned. I had learned that there really are people out there that read my stuff. It’s not like being on television where people recognize you everywhere you go, but being a writer has its benefits, too…..as long as you have something to write about.

When I returned, I had just poured a cup, when my cell phone rang. There quickly commenced a nearly two hour chat with a nephew of my dad’s old Skipper from the LST 920.

                The younger Mr. Schultz told me that, in reading my story about his uncle, he had learned some new information about Captain Harry Niel Schultz that the old seafarer had kept from even the closest members of his family. It’s a common complaint among the offspring of the “Greatest Generation.” A lot of these guys and gals lived through some absolutely horrendous times. Then, when they had finished kicking the Axis Powers’ collective asses, just shrugged it off, gritted their teeth and came home to restart their lives. Returning veterans of all wars carry with them the same demons, but, each generation has a different name for it and a different way to deal with it.

     

Lt. Charles Botula, Capt. Harry Schultz

           My dad never knew what happened to his old skipper after the war. And, he had no way of knowing that Captain Schultz had survived the sinking of his old destroyer and the loss of its entire crew during the invasion of Guadalcanal. Years later, crewmen of both LSTs that I wrote about- the 920, my dad’s ship and the 921, the U-boat’s victim, remarked that Harry Schultz always seemed like a distant figure to his men. A ship’s crew, especially in wartime, is a family. Everybody knows everybody else, and there are no secrets. Family gossip is called “scuttlebutt” in the Navy, and “scuttlebutt” is the lubricant that keeps everything running smoothly. Harry Schultz didn’t hang out at the water cooler on his ship, and it took years before the reason for that came to light. He had lost his entire shipboard family to the Japanese in one horrendous moment, and he was not going to allow mere orders to keep him from disobeying those orders to save members of his new family from a watery grave. My dad frequently said that during the time he was serving under Captain Schultz – from the ship’s commissioning in June, 1944 until he left to come home to the states in November 1945; through U boat  “Wolf Packs” in Europe and swarms of Kamikazes in the South Pacific, no crew member of the LST 920 was injured or killed in combat.

Michael and Harry Schultz

                I really appreciated Kelly Schultz’ update on his uncle. I had learned that Harry Schultz stayed in the Navy after the war and retired as a Commander. I knew that he had a son, Michael, but, I didn't know until Kelly told me that Harry was one of several Schultz brothers who served in the Pacific during World War II. And, most of all, I was able to tell Kelly, that I had talked with more than one veteran of the LST’s 920 and 921 who are still singing Harry Schultz’ praises to this day because their Skipper brought them all home safely. His uncle was a real hero, and I'm glad that I was the one who finally got to tell his story. It would have been a shame if he had simply done his job and slipped away into history.

Ciao, MikeBo