Stories from Bob's Life

In BUD/S training, concluding first phase is a key milestone.  It is physically and mentally the toughest, often referred to as the motivational phase, whereas later phases are more training in Special Warfare skills.   So in April of 1975 when my BUD/S class 83 completed first phase, and were set to get a whole new set of instructors and move on to second phase, it was time for a party.

Someone had arranged for us to celebrate at the American Legion bar in Imperial Beach – trainees and instructors drinking and partying and having a good time. After a great evening of fun and chicanery, all of us pretty well lubricated, I agreed to drive in my old Toyota Corona station wagon three of four of my fellow trainees back to Coronado where where we were all living in the barracks or (in my case) the Batchelor Officer’s Quarters.  On the way, we stopped at the Dairy Queen that was located in Imperial Beach, at the beginning of the Silver Strand highway up to Coronado.

We were standing in line outside at the order window when a young relatively small Mexican guy – a teenager or early 20’s – stepped in line in front of us.  One of the guys stopped him, “Hey buddy, the back of the line is behinds us!”  At that point the kid hauled of punched hard the guy who had stopped him – his buddy clearly was upset by this behavior and tried to stop it, but the kid kept fighting.  I was behind and without thinking automatically reacted by jumping on the kid and we were rolling on the ground.  I recall that my buddies were trying to kick the kid but were kicking me.  While this was going on, someone called the Navy Shore Patrol who came to break up the fight and told us they would be taking us to Shore Patrol HQ in San Diego. I protested that my car was there – they were unimpressed, so we left it there.

I recall only that because I was an officer, they didn’t put me in the drunk tank where they put the other guys – who were enlisted.  But they put me in a chair sitting outside the barred door where the other 3 guys slept on the floor with a bunch of other drunks.   I slept in the chair outside their cell.  The next morning, the duty Shore Patrol guys drove us back to the BUD/S compound and turned us over to the Command Duty Officer, who (as luck would have it) was Lt Doug Huth who was the First Phase officer.

The Shore Patrol rep briefly told Lt Huth what had happened and left.  I recall Huth telling the enlisted guys to get out of there and not let it happen again….but Ensign Schoultz, you stay here.

I had had my left ear pierced in my last year in college as (I guess) an adolescent statement of rebellion from orthodoxy and unity with some counter-culture values. Not the sort of thing that was condoned by the Navy, or by Vietnam veteran SEALs like Lt Huth.  I only wore a gold post occasionally, and had it in my ear that evening.  So when Lt Huth held me back, he looked at me and emphatically told me to “Get that damn thing out of your ear!”

To which young Ensign Schoultz, with more bravado than wisdom, replied, “Sir you don’t have the authority to tell me what I can wear when I’m off duty.”  As I recall, Lt Huth’s mouth dropped and then he yelled “Get OUT OF HERE!”  and I assume I replied with a hearty and polite “Yes sir” and left.   I assume someone helped me get back to the Dairy Queen to get my car.

I have no doubt that Lt Huth shared that incident with other instructors at BUD/S all of whom were Vietnam vets,  helping to cement my reputation among the BUD/S instructors as a weirdo – a pretty good athlete, but a weirdo.  I don’t think that helped my case much at BUD/S. Also complicating the situation in their eyes (I suspect) was knowing that my father was an Admiral, thereby inhibiting their options for dealing with that weirdo Ensign Schoultz.

I never heard any more about it while I was at BUD/S but I was a lot more discrete about the earring.  It popped up later when in my first UDT platoon, a bunch of us young macho frogmen had pierced ears – some getting them pierced at the bar at the SEAL camp in Puerto Rico. The OIC of the Puerto Rico det informed the CO of UDT 21 and let him know about his immature frogmen,  and we were all subsequently counseled and prohibited from wearing earrings in public when we returned.  Those were the days…..