Footlocker holds Vietnam War memories

By JUSTIN DENNIS

jdennis@vindy.com

AUSTINTOWN

Marines Sgt. James Prommersberger was 21 when he died in the Vietnam War — just 10 days from his return trip to Austintown, to rejoin his wife, Dana, and his 3-year-old son James and 2-year-old daughter Kristen.

Pictures of the two children were among the belongings Prommersberger’s platoon buddy Paul Schultz packed into the man’s footlocker to send home after his death. Fifty-two years later, Schultz said he remembered holding those photos in his hand as he and Kristen opened the old footlocker and drew out its old memories.

Schultz, now living in New York, told The Vindicator he wouldn’t be alive if not for Prommersberger. He has told his own sons the same, as well as Kristen, now an Austintown Fitch High School teacher whose married name is O’Neill.

The night of April 16, 1966, about 200 members of the Viet Cong militia attacked Prommersberger’s mine-sweeping crew that night, inflicting “numerous casualties,” according to Prommersberger’s Silver Star Medal citation. Prommersberger volunteered to rescue the wounded, against his lieutenant’s orders, O’Neill recounted.

Though that duty would normally have fallen to him, Schultz had fallen gravely ill and had become little more than “skin and bones,” he said. He said it was a “tragedy” that the only platoon member who was married with children went on that mission — the mission that was meant for him.

O’Neill said her father saved 12 men total. She said she met the 12th, a St. Louis man named Frank White who said Prommersberger shielded him from the fatal mortar blast. The night her father died was just one of several stories O’Neill grew up with, she told The Vindicator.

“My family won’t let me forget,” she said. “I was 2 when my father died and I feel like I know him. I’ve always learned about him.”

Of the 34 men in Prommersberger’s and Schultz’ platoon, four died and another 26 were wounded, Schultz said.

After Prommersberger’s death, Schultz said he felt compelled to share his account of Prommersberger with the man’s family. He requested to accompany Prommersberger’s body back home, but was denied. He was discharged six months later and said he drove straight from North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune to Youngstown to meet with Prommersberger’s wife, Dana.

“Jim often talked about his kids and his wife and [showed] pictures of his family. I wanted to share that with her,” Schultz said. “I said, ‘Would you show me where he’s buried?’ She declined and I understood and I went on my way. ... That was where I left it, buried within.”

Fifty-two years later, one of Schultz’ sons, who also grew up knowing Prommersberger’s name, reached out to O’Neill in honor of his parents’ wedding anniversary in June, Schultz said.

After many “tearful” phone calls, they met in August at O’Neill’s Austintown home and dragged out Prommersberger’s old footlocker. Inside were the two dated 4-by-4 photos of Kristen and James as children — two items Schultz believes Prommersberger was carrying when he died.

It was the first time Schultz spoke at-length about his time in Vietnam, O’Neill said.

Later that night, they ate dinner with several other area veterans at Austintown’s Quaker Steak and Lube, which bears a mural dedicated to veterans, and passed over the Interstate 80 interchange dedicated to Prommersberger and Army Lt. Charles Brown, who was also from Austintown.

They’ve been inseparable since, and Schultz’ extended family has grown, he said.

“I think, right now, I’m making up for lost time,” he said. “I don’t want to say she’s my un-adopted daughter, but I feel like that.”

O’Neill coordinated a veterans committee at the school and helped develop its Purple Star Room, where the school hosts military-related events and students from military families can make video calls to deployed relatives.

Schultz, who made the four-hour trip to Austintown again for the Fitch Veterans Day ceremony Nov. 12, told The Vindicator he’s never seen the kind of dedication to military veterans shown at the school.

O’Neill recounted their story during that ceremony.

“One of the greatest things [Schultz] has ever said to me was, ‘Your dad would be so proud of you,’” she said.