Soldier Tried To Make Life Better For Iraqi Children

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Chicago Tribune
April 13, 2008
Pg. 1
Lt. David Schultz was committed to helping children in Iraq; now his friends are pitching in
By Barry Temkin, Tribune reporter
David Schultz had a remarkable gift for helping people.
He made others want to help them too. That included helping the children of Iraq he encountered while serving with the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division as a First lieutenant.
The fierce fighting in their war-torn homeland has deprived those children of anything approaching a normal life, and Schultz believed he could help them by providing soccer balls, school supplies ... simple childhood staples many American kids might take for granted.
Schultz was a 2000 graduate of Eisenhower High School in Blue Island, and in an October e-mail to his former Spanish teacher, Michelle Alfano, he asked if anyone at Eisenhower "would donate to this cause and just start a box, or a couple of boxes ... to help these children."
"Dave was very moved by the fact they had nothing," Alfano recalled.
So she spearheaded a supply drive, which she said "took on a life of its own," filling 35 boxes with school supplies, soccer equipment and even some candy, which Schultz and his men distributed at Iraqi schools and on their street patrols.
"...You have helped the children around here so much that they cannot wait to see us come around," Schultz wrote in a Jan. 29 e-mail to Alfano.
Two days later, 1st Lt. David Schultz was killed in Scania, hit by indirect fire. He was 25 and left a widow, Sabrina, and a son, Logan, whom he had seen just once, on leave over the Christmas holidays.
The Army promoted Schultz to the rank of captain at a memorial service Feb. 11.
"The feeling was, 'Not this kid,' " Alfano recalled glumly. "Every kid is special, but he's extra special because he was really making a difference.
"And he was so committed to the mission of helping."
That's why what is going on in Community High School District 218 in Oak Lawn probably was inevitable. Alfano and others who had seen what Schultz had done to help children in Iraq were not going to let that effort die with him.
Some of those people had never even met him, including Bob McParland, District 218's public information specialist. But in the aftermath of Schultz's death, McParland learned what made the young Army officer so special.
"The more you heard about this young man, the more you realized he got it," McParland said. "He lived life and enjoyed life, but he also really seemed to feel it was important to leave the world a better place.
"So a bunch of us thought we ought to find a way to honor him and preserve his memory and make him proud."
McParland sent an e-mail April 4 to teachers throughout District 218, which also includes Richards and Shepard high schools. He asked for donations of school supplies, soccer equipment and money, once again to help Iraqi kids.
Almost immediately, Shepard's boys volleyball players agreed to donate the concession-stand proceeds from their matches last Friday against Richards. The players also collected donations of cash and school supplies.
Schultz was an athlete himself, wrestling and playing football at Eisenhower. As a senior he started at defensive tackle despite weighing just 170 pounds, displaying his determination to do whatever it took to get a job done.
"That's an example of who he was," said Greg Walder, Eisenhower's head football coach at the time and now an assistant principal at Richards. "He was just a tough kid who outworked everyone."
Schultz graduated from Northern Illinois University in 2005, the same year he married Sabrina. He joined the Army, was assigned to the 82nd Airborne and deployed to Iraq on June 8, 2007, nine days before Logan was born on Father's Day. Several months before his deployment, Schultz had begun communicating with Alfano, and once in Iraq he initiated his one-man supply drive.
"People felt the mission Dave was on and wanted to support Dave, and I think they liked the idea of supporting children," Alfano said. "It seemed less political and more humanitarian."
McParland began to think of continuing that mission while putting together a memorial booklet about Schultz. His own son Michael, a 21-year-old College of DuPage student, is currently serving in Iraq as part of a Marine reserve unit.
"It's not extra motivation," McParland said, "but it does make it a little more personal when you have a loved one serving."
It was personal, too, for Connie Oriente, a social studies teacher at Jerling Junior High School in Orland Park. She was the student council moderator at Blue Island Junior High School when Schultz was a council member, and the kind of student a teacher doesn't forget.
"He was definitely always Johnny on the spot to do whatever needed to be done to serve," she said.
Oriente had heard of the initial supply drive, and when she heard about Schultz's death she was determined to "pick up the ball where he left off" in some way. Part of her motivation, she said, was to use her former student's passion for giving as a teaching tool.
"I want to get my kids to understand there are a lot of different ways you can make a difference, and Dave Schultz is definitely one person who made an incredible impact in his short time on Earth," she said.
Oriente has contacted McParland about joining forces on the project. When Shepard volleyball coach Joan Alderden got McParland's e-mail, she suggested to her players that they donate Friday's concessions proceeds, which otherwise would go to volleyball program expenses.
Their enthusiasm for her plan expanded with the idea to collect donations at the matches.
"I feel that we are so blessed and given so much opportunity it's our duty to help out," said senior co-captain Andrei Greska, who had not heard of Schultz before.
"You hear about people who are just trying to get their tour done, and here he's not only trying to help his country but also Iraq. It's impressive he would be thinking of other people when his life is in danger every day."
Anyone wanting to donate supplies or money to the drive can drop them at Eisenhower, Richards or Shepard or send them to McParland at the District 218 administrative center, 10701 S. Kilpatrick Ave., Oak Lawn 60453. Checks can be made out to Community High School District 218.
Sabrina Schultz has found an Army buddy of her husband's who is willing to take over distributing the supplies to Iraqi children. She said she is touched by the second supply drive and knows her husband would be too.
"It definitely would have made Dave very happy," she said. "For it to continue and for people to continue to send things is moving to me, and to know people will continue something he believed in."
New ideas for the new drive continue to flow into McParland's e-mail in-box. While he isn't looking beyond the current effort, it's clear he would like to see Schultz's work live on.
"If it's something people get behind, why would you stop?" he said "It's just such a wondrous cause and not something people have to spend a ton of money on to help out.
"I would like to go as long and as far as we can."
 
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