A veterans memory and upcoming event at Charlevoix Senior Center

November 04, 2009
  • 85 year old Gus Schmidt participated in the Ardennes, Central Europe and Rhineland campaigns in WWII.

World War Two was escalating and judging by the events being reported from Europe no one would have guessed it was so close to ending.

It was at this point in the war that 19 year old Gus Schmidt was deployed to Belgium.

He found himself on the fringe, the left flank to be exact, of the soon to become famous Battle of the Bulge.

The battle was given that name by the English speaking general public because of the initial incursion that the German army put in the Allies’ line of advance as seen on maps.

It was here Schmidt saw his first death casualty; he watched a fellow soldier step onto a booby trap and blow his arms and legs off.

Schmidt was platoon Sergeant with the 303 Combat Engineer Battalion, 78th Division.

He and a friend, Jack, who later became his brother-in-law, enlisted about the time Hitler started his last defensive.


After the Ardennes-Alsace Campaign, the battle’s official name, Schmidt was then transferred to the Ruhr Valley ,Germany where his division succeeded in stopping the Germans from blowing up a dam and flooding the valley.

Here Schmidt barely made it into a foxhole in front of his buddy who was hit by enemy fire as he followed Schmidt in.

By March of 1945 Schmidt and his division were among the first to cross the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen.

The capture of the bridge led the way for Allied troops to drive into the heart of Germany.

Schmidt was in the service for 2 years, 10 months and 16 days yet he was a participant in three major campaigns that ended the German involvement in the war.

Schmidt was on a three day pass in Paris when Hitler surrendered less than a month after the victory at Remagen.

“It was a time of elation, said Schmidt, everyone was happy.”

“There was a blue serviceman star in nearly every window; it was gold if the solider had died.  Said Schmidt It was a very different time than it is today, there was much more recognition of the servicemen in World War II because it affected every home.  It seemed like every home had someone in the service.”

In 1923 Schmidt’s parents immigrated to the Detroit area from Germany.

He was born 5 months after they arrived.

“After the war we were reasonably close to my parents home town (in Germany) said Schmidt so I was able to visit an Aunt and an Uncle I had never seen.”

“War is not about the hate of individuals but the hate of the leaders.” Said Schmidt.

“In the movie ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, the original, actor Gregory Ratoff addressed his men and said ‘The way to end all wars is to rope off an area put all the politicians in it in their underpants and let them go at it.” Said Schmidt who has seen 9 wars in his lifetime.

John Peterson has always wondered if he was the recipient of a miracle.

Peterson didn’t go to Vietnam Nam like almost all of the soldiers of his generation did and for 16 years after he came home he refused to join the Veteran’s Administration because he didn’t think that he deserved it.

Peterson was sent to Korea as a Cryptographer.

He coded and decoded messages between Vietnam Nam and the U.S.

“We called in the fire strikes; we called in the bombing raids.  It was years and years before I saw the value in what I was doing. Said Peterson, then it dawned on me that what I did was useful.”

Peterson was drafted into the Army in 1968 and unlike most of his peers who were sent to Fort Knox, KY, he was sent to Fort Dix, NJ.

In the middle of his training he was offered an opportunity to go to school for electronics if he enlisted for another year.

“I’ve been messing with Ham radio since I was a kid so when they offered electronics I jumped on it.”

After school Peterson was sent to a transfer station in Fort Louis, Washington where an amazing and still unexplained miracle changed the direction of his life.

“The transfer station was a huge empty room with desks at one end and hundreds of soldiers sitting on duffle bags. Said Peterson.  Out of the blue a young man comes up and asks, Are you Peterson? I said yes and he asked if I wanted to go to Vietnam Nam, I said not Particularly and he told me to write Korea on my card and anywhere else I wanted to go.  I thought maybe there was something to this.  So I wrote Germany for my second choice.”

“I have no idea where the kid came from, how he found me among all those soldiers or why.” Said Peterson. “It was pretty incredible.”

“When I got to Korea I worked in the Cryptograph vault coding and decoding messages.  I fixed the computers.  In the middle of fixing you have a lot of free time so I read most of the messages that came through and for the longest time none of it made sense they were just names.  Said Peterson.  Then I found out what the names were, it was a list of the dead, day after day, day after day, day after day.

“In the movie ‘We Are Soldiers” Mel Gibson’s wife takes on the job of delivering the telegraphs reporting the death of a soldier. Said Peterson

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