- Enjoy a life lived well and build a treasure chest of fond memories to carry you through old age. Don’t get caught in old age filled with regret at not having really lived. (Undated.)
- There is nothing sadder than an old man whose only future is his past. (January 2019.)
- I didn’t know it at the time, but I had been trained and asked to go off and fight a war by those who already understood that it was lost but sent me anyway. Never again would I ever naively and blindly beckon to the call of my country without question. My honored country was to thoroughly disillusion me in far off Vietnam. But it wasn’t always that way. The enlightenment came painfully slow.
- I was born the 4th and last son of a good and honorable Iowa farmer.
What I’ve read so far makes it clear that Rodney cherished his father, Robert Edward Schmidt Jr. I hope, in time, to type out every one of his stories. I’ve already found 42 journals spanning from 1967 to 2020. More writing continues to surface, tucked into manila folders, books, albums, scrapbooks, and boxes of old photographs and slides.
Rodney left behind 42 journals—some typed (thank you, Uncle Rod) and others handwritten in cursive, their pages now faded with time. In addition, I found bundles of letters sent to him by family and friends, including many from his years in Vietnam. Some of these letters were taped right into the journals while others were found in manilla folders.
He always dreamed of writing a book about his life and even began a few times. Sadly, the drafts were lost when two of his computers failed. Even the experts could not recover them. This website is my way of honoring that dream—by sorting through an entire bedroom filled with his writings, photos, and memories, and sharing them with you.
Rodney Schmidt Legacy 