Pictured: Darwin Schuld with some of his awards and commendation certificates

By Jill Fennema –

Darwin Schuld, son of Dorland and Shirley Schuld, graduated from Edgerton Public High School in 1983.  Prior to this, Darwin had been working on the Jake Kruisselbrink dairy farm east of Edgerton. Jake helped convince Darwin that he couldn’t stay working on the dairy farm – he needed to get out and experience the world. 

That January, Darwin decided to join the United States Army. When he took the ASVAB test, he tested strong in electronics and mechanics. “If it was electronic, I stuck my nose into it,” Darwin said. 

That October, he went to basic training at Ft. Bliss, Texas. He was signed up for the air defense artillery division.  Darwin arrived at basic training a few days early and was sent to the wrong area for a few hours. By the time they put him in his correct unit, he had missed the worst parts of the introduction to basic training. His eight weeks of training went really well. He went home for Christmas. His parents came to his graduation, but they still had four kids at home: Steve, Jeff, Paul, and Pam. 

It was a particularly cold Christmas that year. It was 30 below zero in Minnesota. When he got back to Texas for advanced training some of the other soldiers asked if the thermometer breaks when the temperature goes below zero! 

Darwin was trained to be a Vulcan system operator. The Vulcan is a modern day “Gatling Gun,” shooting 3,000 20mm rounds per minute. The bullets are the size of a man’s thumb. This training took place near El Paso, Texas.

After learning to operate the Vulcan system, he went for more training on how to be the system mechanic. This training lasted until June 1984, and then he was deployed to Zwebrucken (Two Bridges), Germany. His job was to maintain a Vulcan system at the air base there. He worked on the Vulcan guns and his unit trained together regularly. Much of their training took place out in the rural areas, with German farm fields as the backdrop. The area where they were stationed was not far from France, and they did get to tour the underground areas along the French/German border. 

Every week they would participate in bivouac. They would drag the Vulcan guns through muddy fields and the dirt and water would always cause electrical problems on the guns, so regular and routine maintenance was a must. There were 12 guns to a platoon and each mechanic would maintain four guns. The guns run on generator power, so Darwin also went to generator school while he was there so that he could maintain the generators that powered the guns. 

There were two types of guns. One was on a trailer that was pulled by a special military vehicle called a Gama Goat. Darwin drove this vehicle a lot. The other type of gun is on its own tracked-vehicle. 

Part of Darwin’s training included aircraft identification. In order to protect the air base, they needed to be able to visually identify any type of aircraft that would fly in, so as to know if it was friendly or hostile.  Darwin saw many fighter planes taking off and landing – the F16 Fighting Falcons, the  A10 Thunderbolts, and the F4 Phantoms, just to name a few. 

While in Germany, Darwin spent one Christmas with a German family. Another time he was able to visit Denmark. He spent a total of 18 months in Germany. 

Because he was also a generator mechanic, Darwin was able to take part in a special NATO exercise using Chaparral missiles. This training took place in Greece and lasted 10 days. While he was there, Darwin spent time on the beach – too much time. He ended up with heat stroke and had to recover in the barracks. 

Darwin left Germany in December 1985. He came home for a few days, but then was transferred to Ft. Hood, Texas. At this point, he had about 9 month of service time left. He spent January through September of 1986 at Ft. Hood, continuing to work with the Vulcan systems. 

The army was looking for people to sign up for arctic training. Darwin thought maybe going to Alaska could be fun. But he found out that they do arctic training at Camp Ripley in Minnesota, so that type of service didn’t seem quite so exotic anymore.

After the Army, Darwin signed up for the Army Reserves in Willmar as a light wheel mechanic. His training was at Ft. Snelling on weekend drills. While doing this reserve training, he also went to MN West at Granite Falls for electronics technology. 

After graduation, Darwin took a position at Fey Industries and transferred from the Willmar Army National Guard unit to the Worthington unit, which was closer. This transfer also involved more schooling – this time to be a warehouse specialist. That schooling took took place at Ft. McCoy, Wisconsin.