Grandpa's War Story Goes Viral

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Additional support provided by... [ Keyboard clacking ] Like the majority of his generation, Henry De Hoop is on social media.

Facebook is one platform the teenager uses to stay in touch with friends and family far from his Anchorage, Alaska home.

In addition to sharing details about his own daily life, Henry shares updates on family members, including his grandfather, James Schmidt, who fought in World War II.

But the war journey of Henry's granddad is anything but routine.

In fact, it's unlike anything most of us have ever heard or even thought possible.

And to use a 21st-century expression, Grandpa's war story is about to go viral, thanks to Henry De Hoop.

Every time I tell someone anything about his story, I mean, their minds are just blown.

[ Tugboat horn blares ] Henry's grandfather, James O. Schmidt, was born and grew up in the San Francisco area in the late 1920s and 1930s.

At the time, America was trying to find its way out of the Great Depression.

Like so many others, Schmidt's parents had emigrated from Europe.

The Schmidt family included Jim's dad, Ovi, Jim's mother, Asta, and his two sisters, Teresa and Dolores.

Ovi did a little bit of everything to support his young family in the early 1930s, from running a small shop to working on the Bay Area docks.

Then he went to work in the shipyards.

My grandparents were immigrants from Denmark, and I can remember my dad telling me he could remember the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Fast forward to 1941.

Life in the United States was as normal as could be, considering much of the world was already at war and had been for two years.

America was on the sidelines at this point, but everyone knew it was only a matter of time until that changed.

For now, the football and baseball games went on, the grain got harvested, and life in the big cities and small towns was focused on the daily grind.

The threat of American boys being involved in World War II wasn't the major topic of everyday conversation -- until a quiet Sunday in early December.

Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

Millions of Americans began answering the call.

They wanted revenge for Japan's sneak attack on the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

The United States quickly found itself in a war on two fronts -- Europe and the Pacific.

Jim Schmidt watched what was going on carefully.

Like so many others, he wanted in the fight, too.

Jim already had some hands-on experience working in the outdoor Civilian Conservation Corps.

Schmidt found his inspiration to join the military in a 1941 movie called "Parachute Battalion," starring Robert Preston, Harry Carey, Edmond O'Brien, and Nancy Kelly.

The $128,000 Hollywood picture was ahead of its time.

American boys would not jump from airplanes and parachute into actual combat until very late in 1942.

That didn't matter to Jim.

In early 1942, he saw the film at a local cinema and literally jumped at the chance to join this glamorous new breed of soldier.

We've been never had a parachute battalion... I decided that I wanted to become a paratrooper.

He didn't consult anyone about it and told them, I'm sure, he was 18.

Basically, my dad ran off, ran away, and joined the Army.

Which ones out of here do you think are from the World War II era?

One of the reasons Henry De Hoop is so driven to share his grandfather's story with the world is because of the huge secret Jim Schmidt was keeping from the military when he enlisted in 1942.

He was 14.

Wait.

Yes, you heard Henry De Hoop correctly.

His grandfather, Jim Schmidt, was just 14 years old when he joined the United States Army.

He had told me that he was in eighth grade and all the boys in high school were gearing up to go to war, and so he wanted to go, too, and he wanted to be a part of it, and he said, "That's for me.

That's what I want to do."

At 6 foot and 200 pounds, Jim's physical appearance apparently made up for his baby face.

In 1942, some recruiter in some office somewhere wasn't asking a lot of questions or demanding much paperwork.

Bodies were needed for the fight.

The Army sergeant vouched for me.

Back then, how he got in, you didn't have to have ID or birth certificates.

I mean, his parents didn't even know, right?

His mom didn't even know.

As part of his Internet research, Henry De Hoop discovered several facts about who was eligible to fight for the United States in World War II and who was not.

The teenager learned that you needed to be 18 years old to be drafted or enlist in the armed forces back then.

16- and 17-year-olds were allowed to join up, too, but only with a signature from a parent.

Jim Schmidt was 0-for-2 in that department.

He was only 14, and there was no way his mom would give him permission.

The more Henry uncovered, the more it motivated him to go public with his grandfather's incredible story.

He could not believe someone 14 years old would volunteer to jump from an airplane into actual combat.

Spending time with his grandfather at Jim's house in Anchorage, Alaska, and listening to his stories proved invaluable as Henry strategized his social-media crusade.

Ironically, Henry would launch his online campaign at the same age his grandfather was when he first joined the military.

And he decided, for his 14th birthday, he wanted people from all over to write a letter to my dad because my dad had said that he never gets any good mail anymore -- it's all bills.

I just couldn't really not comprehend but... [ Sighs ] It's hard to explain.

Katherine Schmidt De Hoop was around Henry's age when she started to get the sense there was something unique about her father.

And I could remember how much respect he got, and so I thought that was interesting, and then his younger sister, her name was Dolores -- and we called her "Aunt Ditter" -- and Aunt Ditter pulled me aside one day, and she said, "You really need to understand what your dad did through the years and in World War II and how young he was, and someday you need to make sure his story is told."

I'd ask him every now and then, and he would gloss over and just say, "Oh, yeah, I was in World War II, but that's what we did."

In June of 1942, following basic training, the tall, baby-faced 14-year-old Californian reported for parachute instruction at Fort Benning in Georgia -- ironically, the same location where the movie "Parachute Battalion" had been filmed.

Schmidt's father, Ovi, was already in the army and away from home.

Jim's mother, Asta, wasn't overly concerned that her teenage son hadn't been seen for a little while.

Jim had an independent streak, and she figured he probably went to visit his dad.

In mid 1942, young people were on the move everywhere.

Not a lot of questions were being asked of anyone, including Jim Schmidt.

In early November of 1942, Schmidt successfully completed his jump schooling at Fort Benning, which included five mandatory jumps from a C-47 airplane.

He had also celebrated his birthday a month earlier.

Now 15 years old, Private Jim Schmidt had earned his coveted "Jump Wings."

He headed on to North Carolina for more parachute training.

The plane is ready, and so are the men.

Then I was sent to Fort Bragg and was assigned to the airborne unit that was preparing to go overseas.

Like at Fort Benning, Jim Schmidt made more parachute jumps from C-47s at Bragg.

The teenager was living his dream -- a role in a real-life parachute battalion.

Nobody at either Benning or Bragg had once questioned Jim Schmidt about his youthful looks.

At Fort Bragg, Schmidt was assigned to the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 82nd Airborne Division.

The 504th and the 82nd would be part of a specialized weapon of warfare for the United States -- the paratrooper -- an attack force the the Germans and British had already been using with success in World War II.

Teenager Jim Schmidt and his fellow paratroopers knew it was only a matter of time before they would be jumping into combat somewhere.

Parachute training for the entire 82nd Airborne continued into 1943.

That spring, Jim and the rest of the 504th got the word they were leaving Fort Bragg and heading north.

Then we loaded on the train.

[ Motor running ] In late April, Jim Schmidt and the rest of his parachute regiment boarded their transport ship, the USS George Washington, and left the port of New York, bound for Casablanca in North Africa.

In North Africa, American forces had joined the British six months earlier in the final push to drive German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps off the continent.

The American landings were code-named Operation Torch.

The fighting in North Africa was winding down when Schmidt and his fellow paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne started to make their way across the desert via railroad cars in May of 1943.

Headed the opposite way were tens of thousands of German prisoners.

There was some sporadic firing.

[ Gunfire ] It wasn't completely secure.

[ Gunfire ] Training for the 504th continued in the desert of North Africa, with more practice jumps into the summer of 1943.

That's when the Allies began to finalize plans for their next big push against the Germans and Italians.

It would be a massive air, sea, and land invasion designed to strike a blow against the Axis powers -- this time in Southern Europe.

American paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division would help lead the way.

Promoted to corporal, Jim Schmidt continued to keep a low profile.

I realize I was underage, and nobody ever questioned me.

Prior to the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment's first combat assignment, Jim Schmidt wrote a letter home from North Africa.

Until the two-page handwritten note arrived, Schmidt's family had no idea the teenager was out of the country or that the now-15-year-old was heading into actual combat against the enemy as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division.

"Somewhere in North Africa, July 8, 1943, 12:00 noon."

The letter arrived home, shocking Schmidt's mother in California.

"Dear Dad, Mom, and girls, how are all of you?

I can't think of much to say, but I thought I'd write all of you a letter today.

It sure is hot here.

It was 150 degrees in the sun last week.

Sometime, well, it may get cooler soon.

I hope so.

I sent another $30 home out of my payroll.

I guess the personnel will send it sometime in the next week or so.

I sure hope it gets back to the States soon, maybe in a few months or so.

If I get wounded in combat or something, maybe I won't come back at all.

Who knows?

I hope I do, anyway.

Well, I'm gonna close now and say goodbye until I get a chance to write again.

Write soon.

Lots of love, Jim."

And it was kind of a "just in case" letter and very poignant for a kid his age.

Anyway, when his mom got the letter, she was in California and was very upset about it because she thought Jim was with his dad, who was stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, at the time.

And his dad, I assume, thought he was with her.

Jim Schmidt and his fellow paratroopers in the 504th were part of the upcoming attack on the island of Sicily.

Code-named Operation Husky, the offensive was set to begin on July 9, 1943.

Sicily was key to any future invasion of Italy itself and forthcoming attacks in other parts of Europe.

The island had to be taken.

The massive invasion was a combined affair involving the United States Army Air Forces, U.S. Navy, and American Army.

The British and Canadians would also be a major part of the attacking forces.

Paratroopers from England would also jump in.

170,000 troops would eventually be landed on Sicily's shores on July 10th.

Before that could happen, however, some 2,000 American paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne would jump in the night before, July 9th.

They would be part of the largest airborne offensive to date in the history of the United States.

The 82nd Airborne's mission was to prevent German counterattacks from disrupting the landings the next morning.

Jim Schmidt and the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment left from Tunisia on C-47 transport planes.

The paratroopers were to be and Italians defending southern Sicily.

The 504th was given the objective of securing the Gela region of the island.

Gela and its harbor are located on Sicily's southern coast.

It was early evening by the time we took off.

So it was really nighttime.

He wasn't old enough and didn't have the sense enough to be afraid.

Jim Schmidt's fellow paratroopers in the 504th still had no idea of his secret.

He hadn't told anyone, not even his closest friends.

At this point, nobody would've cared anyway.

The focus was on doing your job in combat.

The paratroopers' flight across the Mediterranean from North Africa to Sicily had been routine... that was until the American C-47s carrying the 504th approached the darkened Sicilian coastline.

The Sicilian operation indicated there was much to be learned about the planning of an airborne operation.

I was standing in the door, and, suddenly, all of this antiaircraft fire started coming up, the flak.

It was the dark night.

You could see the moon out, but I just couldn't understand, "Jesus, where did the Germans get all of this flak?

I wasn't briefed about any problems.

And then, suddenly, I felt something like a round hitting this tin airplane that we had.

And it went through, all the way through, but then the engine started to sputter.

So I thought, "Jesus, let me go up here and talk to the pilot."

In one of the worst cases of friendly fire in World War II, American naval ships off the Sicilian coast mistook the Allied transport planes as attacking German aircraft.

Nerve-wracked United States sailors fired their guns at the incoming airplanes full of paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division.

And this is at night.

Then the American ships started firing at us.

[ Ominous music plays ] So all the planes scattered anywhere they could go.

What I did, I stood my men up -- 14 of them I had.

And he had veered off away from the firing coming up, and I said, "Well, can you hold it up long enough for me to get back and get these men out?"

We had hooked up so early in order to make the jump, stood there and waited and waited about a half-hour.

Finally, it got so bad that we were given the orders to bail out.

Then you had one of the sergeants stand there and let him know when we were all out.

I was supposed to land in the Gela area of Sicily.

Troop-carrier aircraft was shot down by friendly forces, and parachute drops were widely scattered.

23 Allied transport planes failed to return to Tunisia.

318 American paratroopers were killed.

He felt something warm on his face, and it wasn't until he hit the ground that he realized it was blood on his face.

So he said he just wiped it up and packed up his gear and it was scattered.

Soldiers were everywhere.

They were far from the jump zone, and so he just packed up and found some other guys, and they headed out.

15-year-old Jim Schmidt was a bit shaken and bloodied, but okay.

He wasn't even sure it was his blood, anyway.

The 504th was scattered due to all the friendly fire, but Jim was in Sicily -- and still alive.

The 15-year-old corporal met up with men from his mortar platoon The paratroopers of the 504th soon came under attack by the Germans.

We fired a couple of shots at one group.

I don't know whether they were Germans or what they were because it's nighttime.

You can't see anything at nighttime.

You go ahead and fire at it.

You don't know where in the hell you're at.

And after that, then the 45th Division started firing at us.

And they had not been briefed, so this outfit that was up on the front line was not briefed about the fact that there were gonna be American paratroopers dropping out in front of them.

But we weren't supposed to dropping there anyway.

That was not our fault.

That was the fault of the fact that we got fired on by the U.S. Navy and the rest of them.

So finally, you know, after doing a lot of swearing and things like this, we were able to convince them that we were American paratroopers.

And then I guess they had everybody come up and take a look at our uniforms that we had.

We had those with the baggy pants and so forth.

And then when that was settled, then they oriented me on one of their maps where we should've been, down in the Gela area.

We took off and started walking.

It was still dark, though.

Packed up my stuff and followed the rest of them.

Back in the United States, the invasion of Sicily was big news.

[ Fanfare plays ] The first invasion of European soil.

Henry De Hoop's fascination with his grandfather's story only grew as he heard more details about the chaos surrounding his grandfather's first combat jump at age 15.

The global Facebook community was about to start getting more of the specifics, too.

Henry was confident that, at the very least, his own friends would find Jim Schmidt's World War II experience truly incredible.

They had to.

Who was parachuting directly into the fight at 15 years old in World War II?

Obviously, parachuted into Sicily, and that was just one of the things that I heard that were really amazing.

Jim Schmidt never talked much to his family about his first impressions of actual combat.

This is glider school... Whether you're 15 or 50, what you see in war can be difficult to articulate to those who weren't there.

He discovered, when he landed, he was in a vineyard.

The next morning, he said there were just bodies everywhere from that battle the day before, and he said most of them were American and that was the first time he'd seen so many, many bodies.

We come across a lot of dead Americans.

Jim Schmidt's next taste of combat on the ground in the Gela region of Sicily would prove somewhat personal, mainly because of his own age at the time.

And we kept going until we got to the road crossing at Gela, and we set up there and waited to find out where we went next.

The Germans were launching a counterattack at a nearby crossroads.

I was in an 81-mortar crew, and I had to set up our mortars.

Of course, he's all hunched there, and they ran into that German patrol.

A young German soldier on what looked like a motorcycle flew by -- not once but twice.

He didn't look much older than Jim Schmidt.

He said he aimed right in front of him and the kid fell immediately, so he always wondered if it wasn't his shot that killed him.

But after it was all over and they had won this skirmish or whatever it was, he went over and, like Katherine said, looked at his body.

It was actually a motor scooter, and there was a boy in it.

He was a German soldier.

And I think, in the early stories, when he was telling me, is that he was probably a messenger, is what he thought because he was going back and forth.

And they would take shots at him, and he decided to take a shot, and he killed him.

He turned out to be, I think, just his age, about 15, and he took his wallet out.

He had shot him in the head, and brain matter was just coming out of this hole, and he felt so bad for him.

And he took his wallet, and there was a picture of a young girl in there -- probably his girlfriend -- and a picture of his folks.

So that's why he kept the wallet.

In case we won the war, he wanted to go find them and tell them how brave their son had been.

Along with keeping the secret of his age from his fellow paratroopers, Jim Schmidt had learned another rule of war.

He never made any friends in combat, because when he first went over and jumped into Sicily, there was a fellow -- I think he was a corporal or a PFC or something -- but he was older than Jim, and he kind of took him under his wing and kind of watched out for him a little bit.

And they were in a foxhole together, and his friend smoked, and he had a cigarette in his mouth.

And they were shooting and carrying on, but, anyway, Jim said something to him, and he didn't answer, and he looked over, and he's still sitting there with a cigarette in his mouth, but he had gotten shot also in the head, and he was dead.

So he thought it didn't pay to make friends.

He didn't really get close to anyone else after that.

During the previous fight with the Germans, a bullet grazed Jim Schmidt's arm.

It didn't do much damage.

Well, just a flesh wound.

Not a deep one.

Jim Schmidt didn't think the laceration was a big deal as he and the 504th made their way through the rubble of Sicily.

They talked to me about it and [Chuckles] asked what I wanted to do, and I said I wanted to stay.

Because he had been wounded in action, a Western Union telegram was on its way back to California, alerting Jim Schmidt's mother that her son was hurt in combat in Sicily -- her 15-year-old son who had been in the Army since he was 14.

I guess they had notified my mother.

As more news of the invasion spread throughout the world, a Western Union telegram arrived in San Rafael, California -- Jim's home.

Asta Schmidt did not take the cable well.

Still simmering over Jim's first letter from North Africa and the fact her 15-year-old son had now been wounded in actual combat, she sat down and wrote a personal note to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

She wrote this scathing letter to President Roosevelt, saying something to the effect she was glad to have her husband serve, but she was surprised that they were throwing 14-year-old children into combat.

She got a reply very quickly, and the top part was printed -- well, it had the White House logo, "Office of the President," the date, et cetera.

And I read the letter several times, and the top part was printed, "Dear Mrs. Schmidt, we received your letter as of --" such and such -- "pertaining to your son, Private Joe Schmidt.

This matter will be resolved as quickly as possible."

But under that, in his own hand, Roosevelt wrote, "Please be assured the military didn't know how old your son truly was.

And he will be located and sent home as quickly as possible."

And then he signed it, "With warmest regards, FDR."

It was a very nice letter.

She was very proud of it.

And after she died in the late '70s, the letter was lost.

We couldn't find it after that.

But she was always proud of it.

No, I never saw the letter.

By the time President Roosevelt's reply to Asta's letter arrived, 15-year-old paratrooper Jim Schmidt, slightly wounded, had almost made it out of northern Sicily and into Italy with the 504th.

When they caught up with him after his mom's letter, when they did catch up with him, I believe it was a little before they got to Messina.

Walked out and got in an airplane and flew back to our camp in Africa.

And I waited for a plane for the States.

I don't know how long I waited until a plane finally was earmarked for that, and then I crawled on and... went back to the States.

But then they, you know, hauled him home.

Around this time, Jim Schmidt was featured in his hometown newspaper, as they found it somewhat newsworthy that this local boy could not make it back for his grammar-school graduation ceremony due to his other commitments abroad.

"It will be impossible as I am rather busy with this job of hunting Germans and Italians."

Following his forced extraction from combat in Sicily, Jim returned home to the Bay Area.

I was given a discharge and told to go on home.

Well, she chewed me out.

You know, [Chuckles] what would any mother say to their son?

So... And that's what forced me to leave.

Now back home, World War II combat veteran Jim Schmidt turned 16 years old.

He was still too young to join the armed forces without parental consent -- something his still-fuming mother wasn't about to give.

So, shortly after getting that earful from Asta, Jim Schmidt went out looking for a U.S. Navy recruiting office in San Francisco and walked in.

Schmidt wasn't interested in staying on the sidelines of World War II.

Like the Army, nobody in the Navy asked Jim Schmidt specific questions or asked for his official documents.

They looked the big teenager over and said, "Congratulations.

You're now a sailor in the United States Navy."

They were the only one that would take me.

So, when he got back, something about they discharged him or whatever it was, that's when he walked downtown to the naval recruiter and joined the Navy, and these were before computer days, and they didn't check on him, and he told them he had been in the Army and, you know, showed them his tattoos, and that was fine with them, and he joined the Navy and went to boot camp again.

Jim Schmidt ended up on a destroyer.

His naval career lasted just six months.

Someone in the Navy found out Jim was 16 years old and had enlisted without permission.

It wasn't Jim's mother who blew his cover this time.

And somehow or other, they knew I had lied about my age and I was still too young to be in the Navy, so they discharged me, and I headed for California.

He was all set to go somewhere in the Navy when they nabbed him again, so he had the distinction of being kicked out of the Army and the Navy.

Despite this latest setback, Jim Schmidt wanted to contribute to the war effort in some way in 1944.

Running out of options, Jim joined up with an organization made up of civilian volunteers, not military personnel.

They were heroically hauling vital war cargo for the Allies across a rough and treacherous Atlantic Ocean.

They had no age restrictions, so Jim finished out the war in Europe with them.

An American convoy underway, on the high seas with urgently needed cargoes for our fighting men on distant battlefronts.

That's when he went and joined the Merchant Marine.

And that's when they put him on this ammunition ship going to Le Havre, and he made, I think, one or two trips which were very scary because of the U-boats.

The U-boats were doing a number on these ammunition ships.

Henry De Hoop's initial efforts on Facebook were beginning to pay off.

De Hoop had posted elements of his grandfather's story and asked friends to send Jim cards and notes recognizing him for his World War II service.

Henry's posts eventually started getting passed from person to person, "going viral" as it's called in the world of social media.

So, he's talking about how he saw the article of your life on Facebook.

E-mails and cards started arriving by the thousands.

The global community was fascinated that a 14-year-old would join the paratroopers in World War II and fight in combat at 15, then join the Navy at age 16 and later brave the Atlantic Ocean with the Merchant Marines.

Henry's social-media campaign was getting a lot of attention and also gaining traction.

He just put it out on Facebook, you know, a little bit about my dad, and then to write him a letter.

And it went viral pretty quickly, and my dad got thousands of letters -- and not just the letters -- hundreds of letters came to the house, but then I would get messages.

I got a message from a teacher in Holland who was doing a whole segment on my dad and his group.

And Germany, Israel -- you know, we got letters from all over, and so that kind of started it, that it was interesting to people and especially to young people.

And it kind of grew from there.

I feel like we don't really understand what was really going on, you know?

14-year-olds nowadays are focused on homework and video games, you know?

Back in his day, when he was 14, he's focused on, you know, "How am I gonna survive now, you know?

How am I going to get through the next day?

Where am I gonna go?"

But this was just the World War II part of Jim Schmidt's military story -- not the end of his journey, by any means.

There would be lots more Jim's grandson Henry would soon discover and be able to share about his grandfather.

After World War II ended in Europe in 1945, Jim Schmidt set his sights on rejoining the paratroopers to finish what he started as a 14-year-old.

Schmidt was now 18 years old and legally could serve in the military without his parents' permission.

Keeping with tradition, however, nobody ever bothered to look at any of Jim's official papers or ask many questions.

He finally could go down and enlist legitimately, and he went back into the Army then.

So he didn't have any moss under his feet between -- he was determined to be in on the action, so to speak.

And I don't remember what the deal was, but I got through without a birth certificate.

And I went back into the Army, and I was sent to Germany.

It was June of 1946.

The Germans had surrendered 13 months earlier, and Jim Schmidt found himself back in the paratroopers as a sergeant E-5 with the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, under command of the First Allied Airborne Army.

The 508th was on postwar-occupation duty in Germany.

They wanted to know where I had been to jump school, and I had nothing to show them, and then I ran into a lieutenant there that had been in the Army, and he vouched for me, and I got out that afternoon and made a jump.

Jim Schmidt's World War II era experience had finally come to an official end.

The teenager had only been slightly wounded and had earned his first Combat Infantry Badge for time in battle at the age of 15.

And his nickname was "Lucky" so... [ Chuckles ] The 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment returned to the United States in November of 1946 and demobilized.

We weren't there very long, and they decided that, "We're going back to the States."

In 1947, Jim Schmidt was bound for Japan, where he was assigned more occupation duty -- this time with the 187th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

And I was shipped to northern Japan.

Schmidt remained stationed in Japan and was there in the summer of 1950, when Communist North Korea's army surged south and began to fight with South Korean troops.

Jim Schmidt was transferred to the 7th Infantry Division, where he helped train South Korean soldiers.

By now, the United States had been drawn into the so-called "Korean conflict" and started committing its own combat divisions.

In September of 1950, Jim Schmidt's 31st Infantry Regiment was needed in the fight at Inchon.

Then in October, the regiment was sent to stop the North Koreans in an area called the Chosin Reservoir.

The American Army would be fighting alongside the United States 1st Marine Division.

The battle would take place in temperatures that dropped to 25 degrees below zero, whipped by bone-chilling wind and in deep snow.

Schmidt's aptly named "Polar Bears" of the 31st Infantry Regiment were about to find themselves outnumbered and surrounded in the most horrific battle of the Korean War.

Then my unit was shipped to this isolated place way, way up in the mountains.

By that time, I was promoted to a sergeant major.

What Jim Schmidt and those fighting alongside him didn't know at the time was that 100,000 Communist Chinese soldiers had poured over their border to support the North Koreans at the frozen Chosin Reservoir.

That was our first battle with the Chinese.

That's the first time that the Chinese troops attacked us.

And how do you fight?

[ Laughs ] You sit in a foxhole and you shoot.

[ Laughs ] So, we pretty well beat the Chinese that attacked us, but they kept attacking, attacking, attacking, and that's when we decided that we had to leave there and go on back to the coast.

And they attacked us all the way going down.

They were overrun by the Chinese so overwhelmingly -- just thousands of them started pouring in -- that they had to retreat.

When they were overrun, they finally said that, "You got to get out of here," because hundreds were coming at them.

And so he just picked up his weapon and started running.

They were going down the hill.

They were attacked from the side of the road, and that's when he was told to get go take them out, which they did.

I had about maybe 25 men, and we were told to go ahead and attack the... Well, anyway, we did.

Korea was much worse.

The reason why was the cold.

And when he was up at the Chosin Reservoir, all those poor men, it was way below zero.

They slept outside on the ground.

In the mornings, first thing they had to do was pick up all the bodies.

And once they had died, they froze solid, and they'd pick them up like cordwood and stack them in the trucks.

And, you know, one never knew when he was gonna be the one being stacked in the truck, and it was just a miserable time for him.

He said you were so cold that you never thought you'd be warm again.

You know, he couldn't even remember being warm.

And so it was a hard time.

Their hands would actually freeze to their weapon.

And, anyway, that was his worst time.

What Jim Schmidt didn't mention earlier was that he suffered a broken shoulder in his unit's withdrawal, leaving him unable to hold a weapon.

With no gun, he was still able to lead his men in the counterattack that captured a key hill.

23-year-old Jim Schmidt would later be awarded the Silver Star for his leadership that day.

What remained of the 31st Infantry Regiment and the 1st Marine Division fought their way back to the coast and were evacuated on December 15, 1950.

Jim's time in Korea was over.

He had earned a second Combat Infantry Badge for his second war.

I came out a sergeant major, and that's as far as you can go in the enlisted.

After he got home from Korea, Jim Schmidt met Peggy Sue Ford.

Met Jim in 1955, and he was home on leave, visiting his folks in San Rafael, where I lived, and he was an acquaintance or a friend of my older brother.

"He's a little older, but we'll see about this."

So, long story short, my campaign worked out, got married -- and just a few weeks later.

He could've been a serial killer.

I didn't know him that well.

But as it turned out, he was a wonderful man.

Throughout the rest of the mid 1950s, Jim Schmidt continued to serve in other airborne and armored units on the home front.

The Army certainly valued his combat experience and leadership abilities.

In the late 1950s, something new was brewing in Southeast Asia.

The United States Army was putting together an elite group of soldiers to combat another Communist threat in Laos and Vietnam that, like Korea, was about to explode into war.

Jim Schmidt checked all the boxes.

He arrived in Laos in 1962.

Schmidt led patrols in the jungle and recruited local forces to help battle the Communist North Vietnamese.

Jim once again found himself on the front lines.

And that's where I was put back into that Special Forces group and... Vietnam, he was in combat a lot all through that war.

He was in Special Forces out in the jungles, doing his thing.

But he said there it was hot and steamy but you weren't physically so miserable that you couldn't do your job.

While in Vietnam, Jim Schmidt got word his father Ovi had passed away.

Jim flew back to Northern California from the battlefields of Southeast Asia.

And he was there when they notified him that his dad had died.

He was still in the clothes he had on.

He was still in these dirty fatigues.

He hadn't washed.

He had no money.

He didn't have a wallet.

That was just the way he was, and I'm sure the stewardess sat him way back in the back of that plane, because when he got off that plane in San Francisco, he smelled like a goat.

I had picked him up at the San Francisco Airport, and like I said, he really didn't smell very good, and we were going through a crowded airport, and here came a group of Moonies and hippies.

And you know how awful it was then.

And, you know, they started surrounding us and chanting at us and saying, "Baby killer, baby killer!

How many kids have you killed today?"

And he just said later, he said, "It was just a good thing I didn't have a weapon."

[ Laughs ] Because he was so angry with them.

But he didn't say anything, he didn't respond to them, and he just tried to ignore them.

After Ovi's funeral, Jim Schmidt returned to Southeast Asia and saw more combat, earning another Silver Star and his third Combat Infantry Badge for his third war.

He was later assigned sergeant major of all Special Forces in Vietnam.

Schmidt was called back to the United States in January of 1965 to report to Fort Bragg as a recruiter.

Jim Schmidt asked to return to combat in Vietnam, but was denied, so he retired.

But like every other time in Schmidt's life, he found another way to get back into the fight.

Jim returned to Southeast Asia to work for Air America, the government-owned airline used often by the CIA to support clandestine and other missions in Southeast Asia.

The organization did everything from flying in ammunition and guns to rescuing refugees and delivering doctors and much-needed medical supplies to the war zone.

Jim Schmidt returned home for good in 1967, his days on the front lines finally over.

He had pretty much been in a combat zone since 1943.

This soldier had earned a rest.

Henry De Hoop's Facebook campaign to honor Jim Schmidt's patriotism was a tremendous success.

People from all over the world took time to like Henry's posts, write a personal e-mail, or send cards and letters.

The teenager was in awe of the response.

For Henry, Jim Schmidt's determination, courage, and sacrifice was hard to comprehend, especially when compared to the teen's own daily life in the modern 21st century.

His grandpa's war story had indeed gone viral.

To do something like that, it takes... it takes courage, takes a lot of responsibility, and... it's just crazy.

Ask Jim Schmidt today about social media, and he'll look at you like you were talking about the technical specs for a rocket mission to Mars.

Jim's generation tends to avoid the trappings of modern technology.

They also humbly deflect all accolades.

Henry knows that.

From the desert of North Africa to jumping into the fight in Sicily, from the deck of a destroyer in the wartime ports of France, from occupation duty in Germany and Japan to the frozen mountains of Korea, and, finally, into the sweltering jungles of Vietnam, Jim Schmidt has spent almost his entire life fighting for his country -- three wars covering roughly 22 years.

Jim never talked about the war.

He never talked about the experience that he had until the kids were old enough to ask him about it, and he would kind of gloss over what he actually did.

I read a lot more in the Army archives about what he did than he ever told me.

So when I'd ask him about it -- "Oh, yeah, well, that was... yeah, 1942."

But he didn't talk about personal experiences much during the war.

He just thought, "I was out doing my job, you know?

It's no big deal."

So he thought that was best forgotten.

The only wound he ever received was in his wrist, and it was either shrapnel or a bullet.

It went through his wrist, and they taped him up, and that was it, so that, out of the three wars, where he saw tremendous combat in all of them, you know, extended combat, that was his.

So that's why they called him "Lucky," and he certainly was.

He certainly still is.

[ Chuckles ] He believed he did his job, and then he was lucky enough to go on in life and do other things.

When Henry De Hoop logs off his Facebook account, he can be assured that the story of his grandfather, Jim Schmidt, will continue to be shared.

It will get likes and receive positive emojis from thousands of people around the world, from Alaska to Zambia.

Jim's proud, Internet-savvy grandson wouldn't have it any other way.

His social-media campaign introduced the world to his grandpa's incredible journey -- a humble soldier who began his calling as a 14-year-old paratrooper in World War II.

I can't imagine the emotional stress of doing that at 14.

His persistence was something that really caught my eye.

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