An unconventional life well-lived

Cadet Fanita Schmidt, Fani Schmidt, Walter E. Schmidt and Sophia Schmidt.
(Dick Trail)

[Click to enlarge]

This was my friend Wally, ever the unconventional member of society. We were visiting in the living room of his home in New Braunfels, Texas. I had stopped in to catch up on his life but more so to express my sorrow to him and his wife having recently buried their only son Waltercito (the "cito" being Spanish for little or small). The five-something-year-old son had been killed in a traffic accident while Wally, Fani and two, just a little older daughters, had survived.

For little over a year Wally, formally Cadet Walter E. Schmidt was my roommate at the Air Force Academy. Hailing from good Milwaukee Teutonic stock his accent spoke that his first language was obviously German. Noticeably, he spoke from one side of his mouth, an acquired affliction, to counter a childhood speech impediment.

Wally had come to the academy directly from being a Basic Training Instructor at Sampson AFB, California. TI's are specially selected for leadership aptitude and military appearance from the raw recruits undergoing Basic Air Force training. I was to learn that he was also special in that he had only completed the 10th grade of high school.

For Wally, school had been boring, especially when he turned 16 and acquired his first car. Somehow he gravitated to the National Guard Base at Milwaukee's General Billy Mitchell International Airport.

The Air Guard was in the process of transitioning from P-51 aircraft to the Korean War vintage F-86 Sabre. The mechanics were trained in night classes and Wally asked to sit in. He attended every session, and when it came time to take the final test, this civilian high school aged kid managed to beg permission to do the formal exam.

Voila! -- he earned the highest score ever recorded for that particular battery of tests.

That fact tweaked the interest of the Air Guard Commander, who in turn pulled a few strings to send Wally to basic training with the goal of returning to his Guard Unit.

That first class of cadets was selected from something like 25,000 applicants in the spring of 1955. Gen. Hubert Harmon, famed World War II commander, was selected by President Eisenhower to be the first Air Force Academy superintendent.

The general told Wally that he has seen his application which was marked "unqualified due to lack of a high school diploma" but Gen. Harmon was intrigued with the potential of the young man and personally selected him for membership in the First Class.

Wally's lack of formal schooling hampered him little in the grueling world of Academy academics. I remember being in Algebra class with him and Wally asking the instructor why the problem was solved in the strict methodology being taught in that lesson. Wally then went to the "green" board and with chalk in hand outlined a more streamlined method to reach the same answer. Unorthodox! The instructor looked perplexed, stammered a bit but could find no answer why Wally's method wouldn't work.

I was honored to stand up as best man when Wally and his high school sweetheart, Bev, were married a few hours after we graduated. He returned the favor a few days later in McCook. Mine lasted more than 50 years. His, not so long, but he started over later.

We went our separate ways, attending pilot training at different bases and then he to a flight instructor slot in Texas and I to SAC tankers in Montana. In Vietnam Wally flew the A-37, a small tactical fighter bomber sometimes called "Skoshi Tiger."

He told me that he got good at it and could place a bomb within just feet of the intended target!

The South Vietnamese Army loved those guys! Some 700 combat sorties, 4 Distinguished Flying Crosses and 25 Air Medals later, he left Vietnam to attend graduate school. Other assignments included duty with the Luftwaffe, and then advisor to one of the South American Air Force Academies. Along the way he also earned two master's degrees. Not bad for a guy who never finished high school.

Following retirement from the Air Force he earned his juris doctorate at Columbia University. That led him to a practice in Lima, Peru, where he found and married Fani, the daughter of the mayor or governor as I remember. The legend continues as their oldest daughter Fanita is a sophomore at the Air Force Academy, a fact that gave him great pride!

Then just weeks before a stroke and heart attack ended his life, he learned that daughter, Sofia, was accepted into the next class of the Academy that will start in Colorado Springs in June.

Our last visit was last June at the 50th Anniversary of our academy graduation. He was there with his wife, Cadet Fanita Schmidt and comely Sophia.

Never was there a more proud Papa! For sure there were few dull moments in that man's life. I was privileged to be a small part of it but for sure I couldn't keep up!

That is the way I saw it.