Robert James Schumacher was born July 27th, 1949. As the only brother of 4 sisters, he grew up a very compassionate, but strong person. Robert was raised as a Seventh Day Adventists. He did not exactly fit the mold. He attended his junior high year through his sophomore year at Columbia Academy, a Seventh Day Adventist school, in Battleground, Washington. However, he did not agree with their strict policies about behavior, self-conduct and pacifist, anti-war ideals. He was not about to live his life according to somebody else’s rules. His senior year he transferred to Lebanon High School.
He was quite popular and loved life at a public school. After graduation, despite his parent’s religious and emotional disputes, he enlisted in the Army. He left Lebanon for his basic training at Fort Lewis, Washington soon after.
His role model through his life had been John Wayne, and burned into his memory was the movie “Green Beret”. To him, to be a Green Beret would be to fulfill a lifelong dream. So, after his basic training, he chose to become a Green Beret and trained at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.. Following that, he trained to be a paratrooper at Fort Benning, Georgia. During this time he met a woman named Debbie in Pennsylvania. Contact with her and Robert’s family back home was very limited. In fact, they only spoke to her two times on the phone. He had become engaged to her during his time on duty out-of-state, and couldn’t wait to bring her back home. He was sending boxes of dishes and belongings home for his future with Debbie, and he included a letter to his mother stating “Now Mom, don’t be nosy, sorry but these aren’t for you.”
Robert’s tour in Vietnam began on August 4th, 1970. He was able to get a phone call or two occasionally, but otherwise he had to wait for his tour to finish. About 32 days before he was supposed to be shipped home, he was at the base in Chu Lui, Vietnam. The base was infiltrated by the enemy during his R & R time. The base and its remaining men were unprepared, but there is some speculation that higher up officials had suspected the attack and left the base the previous week. Robert Schumacher and 32 others that day were killed.
The family received a telegram briefly describing the enemy attack, and informing them that the body was on its way. Therefore, the second phone call to his fiancé from Robert’s family was not to visit, as the first one had been. It was to let her know that Robert had died.
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