Posted by Dr. Delome Greenwald-Schmitt on February 21, 2014:

I am writing to honor a fellow 1969 West Point graduate of yours, who served in the 101st airborne division LRRP/Rangers, 1st Brigade, F-58 LRP, L Company 75th Rangers, 3/506 LRRP in Vietnam from June 28th 1970, up until his death, February 15th, 1971. He is James Leroy Smith. He was born on April 5th, 1944 in a small American town in Pineville, West Virginia. I was born on October 1st, 1945 in a large American city in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We grew up in different worlds but somehow we were connected for life. We met the fall of 1965 at an Army /Air Force Football game in Chicago. His roommate, Adolf Carlson and my cousin arranged the meeting. When I met Jim in the bleachers over looking thousands of people, I was impressed with his green eyes, blond curly too short cut hair, small, proud body inside a gray uniform, beautiful smile, unknown to me. After the evening good bye at the train station, one little kiss, I truly thought I would never see him again. This was not true. We saw each other over the entire four years he spent at West Point while I studied at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee working on a Fine Arts degree in Dance, Art, Music and Theater. We saw each other when he came to spend one week of his first summer vacation, as a plebe to Menomonee Falls Wisconsin. I knew I was in love with him, and he knew he was in love with me. I remember him showing me how he folded his parachute on the backyard ground of our neighbor's property. He took me to a skydiving club nearby and I watched him jump. I also have a picture of him landing on a bull's eye. I also saw him also compete in Tahlequah, Oklahoma in the spring of 1966 or 67. I saw him compete at Ft. Bragg in 1968. We saw each other three more summers in Milwaukee. I also came to West Point to visit him as well as in New York as well two times. We spent three Christmases together in Milwaukee. The last Christmas we spent together I remember asking him what he wanted from his life. He wanted to be a General, a dream he was never to fulfill. There was a very private intimate moment I remember from his face, as if he knew he wouldn't live long. This expression remains with me forever. We also arranged a meeting of my roommate, Katheryn Stoltenberg and his roommate, Thomas Pickett King, in Pittsburg, fall of 1968. They fell deeply in love, were married the following June, after we all graduated. I performed my Senior Dance concert, which I directed, I wasn't able to go to Jim's graduation, and he wasn't able to go my mine. However, through the four years we corresponded. We always were each other's moral support, to keep going and not failing. I would not have made it without his love and understanding. I had no family support. Jim had found time to always write an encouraging love letter to me as well as I to him. Jim came to get me in Milwaukee for Pick and Kath's wedding which was in Minneapolis in June, 1969. We drove through Shawano Lake on our way, where I had spent most of my childhood summers, leaving me with the dearest most precious memories I have of us together. I last saw him in Tucson Arizona, July 1969. We conversed on the telephone and in writing while I was in Kansas City, while he was doing his final training at Ft. Bragg before he would leave for Vietnam. He told me he loved me very much and his life was void without it. I knew he was involved with another woman who he met at West Point, a Monica, I believe of Russian heritage. Jim knew I wanted to dance, and I was creative. He instinctively knew a military life would be difficult for me as I had profound difficulty with separation and an inner conflict with having children so early because of my divorced parents. I remember the phone call from Kath's father telling me that Pick had been killed, February 7th, 1971 and that Jim would be escorting the body back on the 16th February. I remember the phone call from Kath, telling me Jim had been killed on the 15th of February. I still have the unsent letter I had written to Jim trying to offer my love, support and forgiveness for our misunderstandings. He never did get it. It was too late. The following winter, 1972, I drove to Pineville, W.V. to find the grave and meet his family. I never found the grave in Beckley; I didn't want to find it. I didn't accept his death as I was wounded with guilt and regret. It wasn't until I was working on my doctorate in Leadership and Supervision in Charlottesville at UVA, that I had the courage to go back to Pineville. His brother, John, took me to the grave, sixty feet from an oak tree on a hill over looking West Virginia. I also had the courage to go to Washington D.C. to the Vietnam War Memorial, where I found his name embedded in stone, "forever regardless". I stopped getting the letter he had sent me in my dreams after this reality. What a tragic loss. I have taken the last three letters and last Valentine he wrote me, read them over the years, wondering why, like so many millions of Americans scared across our country. A few years ago, February 2009, I had received a forwarded email from my principal. It was from Johnny Smith, Jim's brother trying to find me. I answered him. He asked me to help him. He had Jim's diary, a bad photocopy from six years prior from Monica! I thought it strange that his immediate family didn't receive his private belongings after his death. Not thinking deeply, I cheerfully agreed to help him edit it for potential publishing, a dream of Johnny, who still can't find peace over Jim's death. It wasn't until I received all but the last three weeks (missing) of this diary, did I realize what he had gone through from the day he left, 28 June 1970 until three weeks before his death. He thought 1971 was going to be a good new year! Little did he know what was in the stars for him, as well as the rest of us? It is a very graphic honest monolog of Jim's thoughts and feelings. I couldn't sleep for weeks. He referred to Cpt. Ohle, how he admired him, his kindness and belief in him as an officer and leader. He had great respect for him. He made reference to him visiting Jim in the hospital from his leg wounds. He told him he would be back soon. He should have never come back so soon, he was miserably in pain. I was also able to research some pictures from fellow soldiers from the 75th, who thought also a great deal of Jim. There is one of Cpt. Ohle with Jim, with their backs to the photographer. The minute I saw it with its title, "Lt. Smith and Cpt. Ohle, Christmas Eve", I thought of ours together. Jim also made reference to this day and the two of them talked of your Christmases. I would have loved to know what he had thought. The next day he left and had Jim take over his command in his absence. There are several other pictures I have found as well as two books written in reference to the L Rangers 75th and the one prior that Jim was in until he managed his way to the L Rangers, 75th. He was determined to be there. This has of course been overwhelming for me emotionally, tearing at my heart and soul, but has been major in being able to put some of the missing pieces back together and find some peace. Only realizing how much I have and continue to love, this makes it easier to understand also what this means to you as the ones left to go on as well as all the other family members and friends. The soldiers who served under him still remember Jim. One in particular, Charles Reilly wants to have Jim put into the Ft. Benning Hall of Fame. A Roger Costner to this day remains grateful to Jim for saving his Life. I only wish there had been someone to save Jim's life. He was so intelligent, loved West Point, loved life and its beauty. He knew his only chance was to get a good education to get out of poverty. We were both poor, struggled to get where we were, but valued education highly. He was too young to understand the atrocities of war and politics. However he was introduced too late. It would be my sincere wish to have him recognized post humus for his accomplishments that he might have been entitled to such as the Silver Star. To my knowledge many awards were given, and not always to the deserving. If I can help Jim's family heal, and if it is an award, let us hope something could be done to rectify their remorse. For the Smith family, Jim's mother, deeply embittered, and three caring brothers, something should have been done. Not thinking I would ever be involved with the military, I have served the Army Military Families for 41 years in Bamberg Germany, as an educator as well as a Ballet teacher for hundreds, maybe thousands now, so they can have a better quality life on an Army Post. If Jim had lived and we had found us together again, we would have raised our children maybe also in Bamberg. Some of last words he wrote to me I shall never forget were: "Why when we are together we are so far apart, and when we are far apart we are so together. When are we finally going to be together together?" The answer to this is we were always, but were too young to realize it! He also taught me to be a strategist. It has worked well for me and I know he would be proud of my accomplishments. He believed in me, what a wonderful gift I have from him "forever regardless." I beg your forgiveness if my letter is more than you expected. Most sincerely, Delome Dr. Delome Greenwald-Schmitt Karbach 18/19 96181 Rauhenebrach Germany Delome.Greenwald-Schmitt@gmx.de 21 February 21, 2014 P.S. I have attached two of many poems I have written about Jim. Birth of a Death Soldier, born to die Blond, green eyes West Virginia family They never knew all of who he was Soldier, born to serve What he believed in What he felt in his heart What was the right thing to do? Crossed path In love with the green eyes The coarse haired forehead Framing the fear of death He knew, that Christmas What was going to happen? Framed fame Upon a marble wall, loss Half buried in my soul Half buried in the ground Dropped to his death He loved to fall Death of a birth Another death of America Rests in and on a hill By a big grand oak Telling stories to each other Never lay to rest The rest is told In his secret green eyes, he closed April 5th was his birthday His name was James He loved to jump He loved his Mother's milk rice And biscuits, and his country That betrayed him He loved me who loved him A soldier born to die.... Delome... The Day after Valentine's Day Twenty-five years I feel the tears, Biting at my face in freezing frozen winds, Walking to a senseless job I had, While men were dying in the swamps, rains of endless water, Flying metal to the pounding Earth, Rivers of red are marbling the fields, disappearing into the ground. The rice fields grew, The crop yielded; manna bore crimson upon my plate. I lost my hunger, I had to leave; it's still too late, too early to face. Tears biting at my face, In freezing winds; the rice is red. The rains of endless thoughts pour down my face. Manna bore fruit, a poisonous taste. Delome....

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