Carl Schneider 23:59

First Person is produced in cooperation with the Far East Broadcasting Company, who rejoice in the stories of changed lives through the power of Jesus Christ. Learn more at febc.org. All the things I've gone through, I figure that the good Lord's got more work for me, so if He gives me another day, I get to work. And what I say, I was a kid, I'd say I have two bosses, the good Lord and my wife, and I listen to both of them every day, so it keeps me on track.

His distinguished career in the U.S. Air Force covered decades of service to his country as a fighter pilot and leader. Next on First Person, we honor veterans this weekend by listening to the late retired Major General Carl Schneider. I'm Wayne Shepherd. Welcome to First Person.

Before we get to the interview, please take a moment to visit us online when you get a chance. At FirstPersonInterview.com, you'll find more about our guest, but you'll also find an archive of past programs you may have missed. Plus, you'll learn more about the Far East Broadcasting Company, which makes this program possible. There at the website, you can listen to Until All Have Heard, a podcast with Ed Cannon, president of FEBC. Go to febc.org.

Now with the Lord, retired Major General Carl Schneider served from the end of World War II all the way through the Cold War. You'll hear him tell his story, but since this is Veterans Day weekend, I wanted you to hear General Schneider talk about the men he served alongside in war who did not come home. I started by asking him if he visited the families of those who gave their lives. Yes, I sure have. Primarily in Korea because we're

We lost so many good friends there that I'd been with all the way through pilot training and through combat, but also with some friends from Vietnam. Mm-hmm.

In your book, you describe several close calls, and you actually watch men crash their planes and die. That has to be a horrible experience for you. Well, it's one of those things. You're so focused on doing your job, and it's just very emotional. It's more emotional when you reflect back on it than it is sometimes at the time.

What do you say to a family whose son or husband has been lost in war? Well, I think the main thing is just tell them what the life was like, what their son was like when I knew them and in combat, and what a great person they were. We had a wonderful group of pilots in both wars, and just to build them up, let them know that their time was not in vain, and

Of course, in Korea, when I first came back, many folks didn't really care about the war, and they said it was not worth it. Now, when I give talks, I say, well, you asked 50 million South Koreans whether it was worth it or not. They're now living in freedom.

So I just try to be friends with them and stay in touch with them. I've maintained contact over many years with several of the families. Yeah, I understand you actually bonded with some of those families. I sure did. One in Florida, just like part of the family, one of the nieces just moved to Nashville, and I was over at their house for lunch. They gave me a birthday party, and they called me Uncle Carl, and I'm just like part of their regular family. Okay.

Well, Carl, you went from enlisted private at the end of World War II to major general in the Air Force, and we want to talk about that career. But it started in a cotton field, literally, in Texas. Is that right? Yes, that's right. And my brother and I hated that farm work except for driving a tractor, a car, or a

riding horses. All the other was just pure drudgery, milking cows and chopping weeds. So we saw an old airplane come over one day and new acrobatics, and I turned to my brother and said, that's what I'm going to do. I'm getting out of this cotton patch. So he ended up in the Air Force also. How old were you at the time? I don't know, somewhere around 9, 10, somewhere in that area. And when did you first fly in a plane then? I mean, 9 or 10, you weren't able to do much about it, but when did you start flying?

No, I had never flown. I guess I had a short ride with my brother. He got a private license before I won the Air Force. And I think I flew one or two flights with him in a Raka Champion. But my first real flight was in

I was in a T-6, a 650-horsepower engine when I got into aviation cadets pilot training. Oh, boy. That's like a B-17 for a 19-year-old kid. That's jumping right into the fire from the frying pan, isn't it? That's right. That's amazing. Well, I know your path to becoming a fighter pilot didn't start with flying planes. How

How did it start? I wanted to serve my country. My mother and my dad had served in World War I, and as we were growing up, my mother always said, you boys are going to serve your country. And so we just had that in our mind all the way, and

So I went down to the recruiting office and told the old sergeant that I wanted to be a fighter pilot. Sign right here, son. We'll get you right in. Well, you know, recruiting sergeants, I was a fish there, and they could sucker reel me in. Turned out pilot training wasn't even open. This was right after World War II. We had thousands of excess pilots. So I ended up going to basic training.

then to a tech school up in Denver and became an armament mechanic and then was assigned to a B-29 unit, the one that had previously dropped the atomic bombs in Japan, and served there until I got orders later to do pilot training. So when did this transition to pilot training begin, and how did that come about? I mean, did you have to convince someone? Well, they reopened aviation cadets.

And so I was the first one, when I found out about it, I was the first one down at the office to sign up. I wanted to go into the aviation cadet program. At that time, you didn't need a college education. You just had to be a high school graduate. And I had one year of college and ran out of money.

And so anyway, I had to take all the tests, which are pretty tough, physical, mental, emotional, and all the other things, and passed that and was assigned to Randolph Air Force Base or Randolph Field, it was called then, in San Antonio initially. But eventually you got to start flying planes. What was the first plane you flew? It was called a T-6, and it was a World War II airplane that was the advanced trainer in World War II.

Air Force, in their wisdom, knew that we'd be going into jets, so they wanted us. We were an experimental class, the first cadet class after World War II. So we started off in the advanced trainer at T-6.

Flew that for about 220 hours, and then our last 80 hours were in the P-51, which was the main combat fighter in World War II. So they really accelerated our training, and of course the washout rate was 60%.

So not too many made it through. It was really a tough program, but it prepared us well for the speed and so forth of jet aircraft after we graduated. Yeah, I think most Americans, when we think about World War II fighter planes, we think of the P-51, don't we? Yes, that was one of the main aircraft, mainly in Europe, and then, of course, later in Japan. They used to fly long-range missions all the way to Japan from Japan

the islands in the Pacific to escort the B-29. So it was a main fighter. The P-51 and the P-47 were the two main tactical fighters in World War II. Now, when you joined up, this is actually pre-Air Force, isn't it? One year before we became the U.S. Air Force. It was still the Army Air Force when I went in, and we got commissioned. We still wore the old Army pinks and greens, they called them, uniform, and then transitioned to the blue uniform F-25s.

after we became a separate service on 18 September 1947. My goodness, so you're actually part of history. That's remarkable. It really is. Well, I'm technically a World War II veteran because I went in, the official end of World War II, a

officially and what's up twenty one thirty one december nineteen forty six a year and a half after history was signed in the the surrender was signed in tokyo bay it took a year and a half to demobilize sixteen million men and uh... he they had disposed of all the equipment aircraft thanks to the scattered all over the world we had uh... italian japanese and german prisoners working on parable of the united states i had to be returned home

Many thousands of war brides that soldiers had wed overseas, they had a right to come home. So it took a year and a half to sort it all out. Anyway, I enlisted on 18 September 1946. So I'm officially a World War II veteran. So it started with World War II, and it went all the way through the Cold War then, your career. Well, I set on nuclear targets in Europe. We set on targets in fighters in Europe for 30 years.

uh... the bombers got all the credit but most folks don't know we were really kamikaze pilots at the war it started with russia we had uh... we were prepared to fly nuclear weapons into eastern europe and you had enough fuel to deliver a nuclear weapon and and that's it and bail out you were never coming home so people say they make a big deal about the japanese kamikaze pilots but we were kamikaze pilots for thirty years and jet fighters in europe and the pacific

Was it difficult to make the transition from a prop-driven plane to the jet fighter? No, it was a piece of cake for me. I saw the jet in the morning and read a little manual on it, what's takeoff speed and so forth, and the ops officer took me out of the airplane afternoon and gave me a pre-flight and told me to get in the cockpit and had a shooting helmet. Well, I borrowed his helmet, I guess.

because we didn't have jet helmets at that time, and got in the cockpit. He said, you know how to start it? And I said, well, I think I remember what I read this morning. He said, well, I'll start it. So he reached in and started the airplane. Next thing I knew, he hit me on the shoulder and said, go fly, and pulled the ladder down and walked back in operation. So I took off, and I said, that's a piece of cake. After the P-51, a nose wheel landing gear,

or nose wheel gear and center line thrust which was a real problem with the P-51 because it had so much power and so forth but anyway it was a piece of cake I went up did acrobatics came in and

And I shot Landings and walked in operation. The ops officer said, oh, you survived. And those were the days. And if you killed yourself, you weren't any good anyway. Just get rid of them in a hurry. It's a pretty brutal way to do it. Yeah, you make it sound so easy, but it had to be really quite a task. And times are different now, I bet, aren't they?

Absolutely. My grandson's a captain in the Air Force in F-15s, and he's taken almost, I think, three years to be fully combat ready.

And that's quite a difference. Of course, airplanes are more complicated now, but quite a difference to the days when I started. When we talk about flying by the seat of your pants, you know what that means. That's right. You had to navigate by dead reckoning. If you didn't reckon right, you're going to be dead. He's retired Major General Carl Schneider of the U.S. Air Force, and we'll continue talking with him next on First Person.

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My guest is retired Air Force Major General Carl Schneider, good friend, and the author of two books. The first book is his life story, Little House on the High Plains, story of growing up in Texas, his memoir of family living during the times of the Dust Bowl there in the Great Depression and World War II. And then his second book, Jet Pioneer, a Fighter Pilot's Memoir, Major General Carl G. Schneider. You are dedicating the proceeds of these books to charity. Why are you doing that, Carl? Well,

Well, I donated to veterans, different veterans groups, because a lot of these younger veterans

Afghanistan, Iraq veterans and some of the Vietnam veterans have some pretty serious issues and I thought it was a good way to help some of them get back on track. So I work with colleges, universities and individuals and veterans groups to just try to help the transition and get them back in civilian life and get education or skill and then get good jobs.

You flew combat missions in both the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Talk about Korea and your service there. I was on Okinawa when the war started, and I just finished my tour there and was just ready to come home.

And the wing commander came in and said, the North Koreans have invaded South Korea, and that you guys, several of you guys are eligible to go home if you want to. You finished your tour, but he said, you'll probably be back over here, so why don't you just stay, and we'll probably be going up there pretty soon. So we all stayed and moved up to Idozuki, Japan in, I think, September of 1950, and

We flew a lot of missions right around the Pusan perimeter, which was just the very corner of South Korea that we were still holding. We flew a lot of missions there, and then after the Inchon invasion, we moved up to Kimpo in Seoul and flew missions out of there.

and then moved back to Itazuki after the Chinese came in, and then the group finally moved back up to Korea after the war stabilized a bit. We glorify fighter pilots, but there wasn't any glory, was there? No.

No, it was tough. It was the coldest winter they'd had in Korea in 100 years. It was just absolutely miserable, and of course we were short of parts. Sort of like we are right now. We had practically demobilized the military, so we had some tough times there, and the quarters were not good, and it was miserable.

conditions and so it was not a fun deal and then many missions you knew one guy out of four wasn't coming back so it was a pretty tough time. I read in your book that 22 of 32 pilots were lost in your section. Yep, that was most of the guys I'd gone through pilot training with and through two assignments so they were just like brothers. It was really painful to lose them and then of course it's

Was it doubly painful to come back and have to visit with all the families and go through it all again? So it was a very tough, emotional time. But you didn't have to do that. Why did you do that? Well, we'd made an agreement when we all agreed that we'd go on to Korea with our group in Okinawa. So we got together and agreed that whoever survived, which we knew not all of us would make it, would visit Japan.

uh... the other guy's family so we all started divvied up the the ones we'd lost and i visited several of the families and uh... got to know them and have stayed in touch with them in fact i was just over in lebanon tennessee giving a talk a few days ago and one of my good buddies was killed over there i've tried to find the

The family I'd visited when I came home, but they had all passed away. So I had stayed in touch with them for a few years. But I think it gave closure to a lot of the families to know that you'd served with their son and he served honorably. Yeah, well, thank you for doing that. That's remarkable. And in addition to those who died, several became POWs. Have you been in contact with them since?

Yeah, our commander got shot down, and I stayed in touch with him. He was POW. He came back and worked for Sandia Corporation. They lost a leg when he bailed out. He vaded for a while, and then again, Green set in, and they just sawed his leg off with no anesthetic in North Korea. But he survived and lived another 15 or 20 years.

Well, your interest in Korea today, South Korea today, and ministry in North Korea is remarkable because you are supporting the Far East Broadcasting Company. I would imagine it dates back to your service in Korea. Is that correct? Well, it did, yes. I had a lot of friends there. I trained a lot of the Korean pilots right after we came home from Korea. I had 13 young captains and I think 12 lieutenants.

came to my base, and I was detailed to train them to fly jet fighters. They'd been flying P-51s during the Republic of Korea Air Force,

Anyway, I trained all of them, and we had them over at our home, and it really took great care of them. Twenty years later, I went back, and the captain's now a four-star commander of the Korean Air Force, and the others are all generals. So I had about anything I wanted in the Korean Air Force. They opened the door and said, you go fly anything you want. Yeah, but so that's a great story.

Well, in addition to combat in Korea, you flew in Vietnam, which just blows our mind that you started at the end of World War II and went all the way through the Cold War and passed. Talk about Vietnam for a moment. Well, I had a fighter squadron out in Arizona, and I got a call one day from a general up in headquarters in Langley, and he said, you've been selected to go to Vietnam and set up the Air Liaison All-Star Forward Air Controller Program.

And I said, where's Vietnam? This is 1962. Well, they call it Indochina. We didn't have any publicity about that. Hardly heard the name. Anyway, I went over there and set up the program with the Vietnamese Air Force and the Vietnamese Army. This is a coordination program of air and ground support for the forces there. And then I flew with the Vietnamese Air Force and then went out with the Vietnamese Army on missions and

and then help set up a lot of camps up along the Laotian-Cambodian border for special forces that were coming in and set up their request net.

So I got to be in just about every nook and cranny in Vietnam. It was very exciting. And I got one of my young lieutenants that went on to be very notable. He's now on Fox News, Tom McInerney. Oh, yes. Was one of my young lieutenants. And I had some really great young fighter pilots working for me over there. In service to your country, you did move around a lot.

that had to be very difficult for your family at times. Well, luckily, I had a wife who was very supportive. She was teaching school in Las Vegas when I was flying F-86s, and when we were getting very serious, I said, well, now here's the deal. I said, I'm going to stay in the Air Force. I'm going to fly every airplane I can get my hands on, and if we move a lot, you're going to have to be prepared for that because a new airplane comes out or a new job, I'm going to volunteer for it because I like a lot of excitement. So I said,

I said, if we get promoted up the line, it'd be a lot of social affairs. And I said, if you want to do that, let's go. And she said, if you don't say so right now, she said, oh, it sounds great to me. And she never complained about all the moves we made. I'd come home and say, we got orders for $10 somewhere. She said, okay, let's get back and tell the kids we're having an exciting new adventure. So we were married for 44 years. Unfortunately, she passed away in 1999. Yeah.

But she was a great Air Force wife. And now the Lord's given you Carol by your side. I met a few months later, I met a beautiful young lady, and we dated for two years, and I wanted

went over to Alfred in one night and went home and looked over my checklist. I can expand on that later, but I said, why don't we just fly to Hawaii tomorrow and get married on a beach at sunset? Let's go. So we did, and we've been married 17 years now. Just had our 17th anniversary. Had a wonderful time. That's a great love story.

You have stated that you believe the Lord has guided your entire life and protected your life during all those combat missions. Can you elaborate on that a bit, Carl? Well, I just had a very strong spiritual childhood. My folks are very, very dedicated Christians, and I've just figured all the time that the good Lord's taking care of me, and I really don't worry a lot. I

all the things I've gone through, I figure that the good Lord's got more work for me, so if he gives me another day, I get to work and do what I say. I was a kid, I'd say I have two bosses, the good Lord and my wife, and I listen to both of them every day, so it keeps me on track. And I assume you listen to the Lord through the reading of his word. Scripture has meant a lot to you, hasn't it?

You bet, yeah. I've been involved in a lot of different men's Bible groups, and we went to the base chapel while we were in the Air Force, but we've been in regular churches at

Arizona and now in Nashville. One of my good friends was Billy Kim. He ran our men's Bible study when I went back over to Korea. And so he's been a good friend for many years and visited our home, and we visited them in Korea many times. So I've just had a strong—we have a great group now that meets at Darrell Waltrip's home every Tuesday morning. We have about 70 men there.

So it's been a great comfort, too. And we had a chaplain that was great in Korea. He'd always come out the end of the road, have a short chapel service before each mission, and he'd come out the end of the runway in his Jeep and salute us when we took off every day. So that was a great comfort. Carl, even in retirement, you are giving back through a lot of volunteer efforts. And I just want to say, first of all, thank you for your service to our country. And second of all, as a brother in the Lord, thanks for what you're doing today.

Well, I always say it's a lot of fun except when you're getting shot at. That wasn't a lot of fun, but other than that, it was just a great adventure. The late, retired U.S. Air Force Major General Carl Schneider. He wrote two books, one a biography called Little House on the High Plains, the other a memoir of his career as a fighter pilot titled Jet Pioneer. We'll place links to both books on our website, firstpersoninterview.com.

Carl Schneider died earlier this year, but his life of service reminds us of all those who serve our country with distinction. He always carried a real burden for vets, and you can read more about it when you follow our links at FirstPersonInterview.com.

Don't forget that you can find us at facebook.com slash firstpersoninterview, where you can both leave comments and read what others are saying. That's facebook.com slash firstpersoninterview. And a special word of thanks to the Far East Broadcasting Company, a ministry that General Schneider loved, by the way, for making this first-person interview possible. Learn more about the ministry of the Far East Broadcasting Company at febc.org.

Now, with thanks to my friend and producer, Joe Carlson, I'm Wayne Shepherd. Join us again for First Person.