BRIDGEVILLE, Pennsylvania — The process of identifying U.S. servicemen and women killed in action can be a long, involved, and seemingly impossible job, much like war itself. As part of my ongoing series, Your Service, I learned about someone we can claim as one of our own, whose life was claimed decades ago. It’s a loss still felt today.
One more ride for a patriot born in Pennsylvania and raised in Massillon. For the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies, it’s one more white headstone to rise from the green grass. It’s taken decades for Fireman First Class Walter Fay Schleiter to get here. At 21, he enlisted in the US Navy in Cleveland, assigned to the USS Oklahoma, onboard on a defining day in history: December 7, 1941. He was killed at Pearl Harbor. US Air Force Chaplain Major Jeremy Caskey was there when Schleiter was finally laid to rest.
“Some things in the world have changed since then,” he said. “Some things have not.”
Rev. Larry Mort of St. Andrews Lutheran Church noted, “We’ll never know what Walter was doing at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor. But I’m pretty sure he didn’t wake up that morning thinking it would be his last.”
The family was on hand for the burial on April 11. Another day many thought would never come. As Pennsylvania State Senator Devlin Robinson said, “He was actually disinterred three times before he was actually able to be identified.”
During readings from the 23rd Psalm and the Gospel According to John, the family wept. As did the clouds. Despite that, haunting hunks of weathered yet immovable stone lined up in rows for almost 300 acres, void of emotion, welcoming a brother home. The hands that clutched the flag at the cemetery were barely one year old in 1941.
There was a 21-gun salute, 21 ear-piercing shots, and 24 notes a family can hold dear forever as taps were played.
“God was with Walter that day,” said Mort. “And Walter is with the Lord God even now. That’s a promise.”
Schleiter, one of 429 lost on the USS Oklahoma, is now found. Now, at rest. Now, home.
