Henry Schulte, the eldest of seven children, was born and raised on Mountain Rest Road in New Paltz. He played in the woods with his brothers and sisters, was in the local Boy Scout troop and served as an altar boy at St. Joseph’s Church. A talented athlete, Schulte played football for New Paltz High School and was also its star golfer. After he graduated, he worked at several local businesses, including the Railway Express agency, Rocking Horse Ranch and as a caddy at the Mohonk Mountain House golf course.
Soon after he turned 18, he was drafted into the US Army. He was shipped off to complete advanced guerrilla training at Fort Polk, Louisiana before beginning his tour of duty in Vietnam on November 7, 1968.
While stationed in in Long An Province in South Vietnam, the young soldier earned his Silver Star by pursuing an enemy in close combat and uncovering a large arsenal of the Viet Cong. “That cache he uncovered was the largest collection of enemy weapons ever found by the Ninth Division Infantry soldiers,” said retired Army sergeant Gene Santiamo, a friend of Schulte’s who was there when the corporal found this treasure trove. “It took two two-and-a-half-ton trucks to haul it out. He saved a lot of lives that day.”
Schulte was injured, but continued to serve.
Santiamo remembered walking into the mess hall in Long An Province one morning and people talking about a new replacement who had come in. “They knew I was from New York, and they were telling me about some kid from New Paltz. I said, New Paltz? I’m from Poughkeepsie – that’s practically in my back yard!” The kid they were referring to was Schulte. HE AND Santiamo became fast friends.
On February 1, 1969, just three months after arriving in South Vietnam, Schulte was hit by enemy fire and killed in action. He had charging an insurgent position, an act that posthumously earned him the First Oak Cluster award, along with the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
“I wanted to accompany his body home to his family,” recalled Santiamo at a memorial service recognizing the fallen hero this past Saturday morning, orchestrated by the office of assemblymember Kevin Cahill. A tree was planted and plaque engraved in his honor was installed next to the playground at Hasbrouck Park in the Village of New Paltz. “But they were very short on personnel and my request was denied.”
Instead, the boy from Poughkeepsie sat down and wrote a letter to Schulte’s parents to let them know what a “good friend he was, what a good person he was, what an incredible soldier he was.”
When Santiamo returned home from the war, he made a point to contact the Schulte family, who welcomed him. But as the years went by and lives diverged, Santiamo lost touch – until about seven years ago, when he went on a golf outing to the New Paltz Golf Course. He saw a sign advertising the Henry Schulte Golf Tournament, in which the corporal was honored every year by his community for the past 35 years, with the proceeds being put towards a scholarship for a New Paltz High School graduate.
“I went into the café and asked about the tournament and explained that we had served together in Vietnam,” said the retired Army sergeant at the dedication ceremony. The sun shone on the memorial of the fallen soldier, with his family, friends and representatives of the village, county and state present.
“He wasn’t even 21 years old,” noted Cahill. “Today, he wouldn’t have been old enough to go to P&G’s and have a beer.” The assemblymember explained that to his knowledge seven residents in Ulster County who made the ultimate sacrifice in the Vietnam conflict. ‘These are seven of our brothers, our cousins, our friends.”
According to Cahill, the movement to honor every fallen Vietnam veteran in Ulster County began a few years ago when someone called his office asking whether the government could provide a new American flag, because theirs had been torn by tree branches growing up around it. “What we learned was that this flag hung in honor of this resident’s brother-in-law, Peter Donovan, who lost his life serving in Vietnam,” Cahill explained. “That’s when our office, in cooperation with the families of these heroes, began to put together dedications to honor their service and their sacrifice.”
Schulte, to the assemblymember’s knowledge, is the only person from New Paltz to have lost his life in Vietnam. “We’ve had many who served, and who came back with all kinds of losses, but these are the ones who gave of their lives.”
After the choir from St. Joseph’s finished it’s a-capella performance of “Amazing Grace,” Cahill pointed to the Catholic church. “Corporal Schulte was an altar boy just a stone’s throw from here,” he said, “and this tree and this plaque stand so close to the houses his father and grandfather built.”
The memorial maple tree was a joint effort of the Village of New Paltz, its Department of Public Works, and of Ulster County, which was represented by county executive Pat Ryan and county sheriff Juan Figueroa. Village mayor Tim Rogers and trustee Bill Wheeler provided the local stone where the plaque now rests in the corporal’s honor.
One of the deceased’s younger brothers, local builder Gary Schulte, said that he just remembers “being the pipsqueak in the back of my older brother’s convertible as we rode around town.” The kids were all very close and played outside together all day. “He was my older brother. I worshiped him.”
The dedication took place exactly 52 years after the day when the young Henry Schulte arrived in Vietnam. Now his memory will be further enshrined in New Paltz history.
Previous Ulster and Dutchess County honorees include private James R. Reilly of Esopus, lance corporal Peter Michael Donovan of Kingston, corporal Chester J. Joy of Ulster, staff sergeant Walter Dart of Kingston, specialist Alan Pagliaroni of Rochester, private first class Harold Huggs of Accord, private first class Robert Tubby of Kingston, staff sergeant Charles Johnson of Kingston, and corpsman Ronald Rockefeller of Tivoli.
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