by Sue Morin
I was a young person in the early 1970's when POW/MIA bracelets were first available where we lived. I remember very clearly, the day by Dad handed me mine. I remember being at a Little League baseball field. He had purchased four of them: one for each of us in our family. I put mine on my arm that day never suspecting that 29 years later I would be writing a story about it.
S/SGT. KLAUS SCHOLZ
11-30-68
The bracelet was bright silver with dark black engraving. Once it was on my arm I asked my Dad what "S/SGT" meant. He explained to me and that satisfied me. I was too young to really understand the impact that this war was having on an entire generation of young people. I just knew that the name on my bracelet was one of someone who was a Prisoner of War or Missing in Action. Either definition was easily understandable, even for a young girl. I wore the bracelet constantly. My parents came to my defense more than once when, while playing league softball, the umpire told me that I would have to take it off because of the glare from the sun. From then on my Mom made sure that it was taped with white adhesive tape so that it would not catch the sun and blind anyone. It didn't take very long before it wasn't such a bright silver anymore. The inside was becoming rough and it was rubbing my arm raw.
I remember when I was in Junior High School, one of my friends was giving out stickers to be put on the bracelet. They were white backgrounds with a blue star or just the opposite. I don't remember what each one meant now, but my bracelet has a sticker with a white background and a blue star. I don't remember exactly when I stopped wearing it. It was sometime after that long list of names was printed in the newspaper. I remember that newspaper being spread out on our dining room table and all of us hovering over it looking for "our guy". The only thing I can remember now is that my Mom's "guy" came home and mine didn't. I felt very sad that he was still there but at that young age, I don't think you're even capable of processing those kind of feelings: and then if you can, what do you do with them? I saved my bracelet in a safe place and every once in awhile I would look at it and wonder about KLAUS SCHOLZ.
In July of 1996, I was in Washington DC on vacation, visiting my parents. We, of course, did all of the "touristy" things. I wanted to find "my guy's" name on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. I looked in the book and found his name and his home town and what caught my eye was his birthday. It was the same as mine! There was quite a difference in years, his 1944, mine 1960, but the same January 20th birthday! I went to where his name is engraved on the Wall and just stood there and looked at it. I didn't know what else to do. I was awestruck by the Memorial itself. All those names…
I wanted to find his grave at Arlington National Cemetery so off we went. I was so disappointed when I was told that there was no grave for him there.
In July of 1998, I went back to Washington DC again, to visit my parents. We went back to the Wall and I looked at his name again and was awestruck all over again at all the names…This time I didn't go to Arlington looking for a grave because I already knew that there wasn't one there. In January of 1999, I decided to call information in his hometown just to see if I could get a listing for that last name. I did and after a couple of calls, I actually talked to his brother. He was able to give me some information about Klaus that I didn't already have. He couldn't give me a lot, though, because Klaus was the oldest of several children and the brother I spoke with was much younger than Klaus.
I learned that His mother literally fled for her life, from Germany, with Klaus in her arms, in 1945 when he was one year old. He wasn't even an American Citizen and he went to war for this country. He told me that Klaus was quite a decorated soldier but couldn't expound on those decorations, about which I am still very curious. I also learned that in 1997 the government finally returned some bones to his family insisting that they were Klaus' and so he has finally been laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. This December when we again go to Washington DC to visit my parents, Arlington will be my first stop. It will be a sort of close for this story about a man who I never knew but was deeply connected to by that bracelet that I wore on my arm so many years ago.
I write this with the deepest sincerity,
Sue Morin
Oroville, CA.
