To hear his story, Samuel “Sam” Schmidt, 35, a retired U.S. Army sergeant and resident of Killeen, was an average high school student before joining the military.
He played and graduated as an offensive tackle for the Brentville Area High School Tigers in Nokesville, Virginia, and did just what many teenage boys wanted to do for several years. He was a roadie for a local metal band called Timelord. .
Not that he was musical, but he had friends who were. And he was built for heavy lifting. About 6 feet tall and muscular, he could do the same things with any heavy equipment that he had extensive experience on the football field.
So, at the urging of friends and bandmates, he got gigs, followed the band up and down the East Coast, and took several gigs with the band to Germany and France. And while the image of being part of an entourage may conjure up images of living large in hotel rooms, Schmidt's story of their adventures is not about excessive luxury or glamorous living.
“Many nights the band slept in a hotel room or a room at the venue,” he said. “The room at the venue was always full of luggage and the van was full of equipment, so there was no room for a roadie.”
Many times, he said, he had to find a place to sleep among what was available. And when it happened, he didn't sleep in a comfortable recliner or even on a carpeted floor, he says, shrugging his broad shoulders. Then the place he would sleep would be much less luxurious than a hotel room, or even a place with a roof.
There's a type of fatigue that hits people when they're exhausted. It's the kind of fatigue where you no longer care about trivial things like where you are. On several occasions, he built his bed on top of a pile of trash bags in the alley behind the venue where the band played. It was something that sounded just a little bit nostalgic or even hardcore to people who didn't have to do it.
All of that, he decided, was about to change. He admitted that he wandered through his high school years. Although he never got into trouble, he never took himself seriously intellectually or academically, and he felt he had little purpose outside of sports.
“As a roadie, I hit rock bottom and felt like I wasn't going anywhere in life,” he confessed. “I longed for purpose, direction, structure, and values in my life. But more importantly, I wanted to be part of something more valuable than the life I was leading.” That’s it.”
He was determined to join the military, specifically the United States Army. And all he had to offer them at the time was, as he said, his high school transcript, except that up until that moment he had not been challenged himself. It hardly proved anything—or at least, he told himself, not in any way that mattered.
When he walked into the U.S. Army recruiting office in Falls Church, Va., he wasn't exactly sure, he said. He was clean-shaven, with wavy auburn hair that fell just above the impressive breadth of his muscular shoulders, and was wearing gym uniform. There was a scent of autumn in the air, so he opened the door.
“I still remember that moment,” he said. “I knew for sure that I was leaving my old self behind and that my new self was taking a very important step toward the future.”
The old Schmidt didn't think he was fully disabled in high school, he recalled. He really wasn't blaming anyone. He took the assigned courses, completed the assignments, passed, and graduated. This time, he thought, he was asking more of himself than he could deliver.
He took the ASVAB, a test military recruits take, and his voice echoed the same amazement he felt the day he took it, he said: The results were in.
“I never imagined that I would be able to score so many points,'' he said humbly. “The recruiter kept telling me I was qualified for any position in the Army, but I wanted the infantry.”
Just imagine. Faced with the prospect of voluntarily enlisting in the military, Schmidt learns that not only will he undergo rigorous training and a military career, but he may also be required to put himself at risk for his country. I was also well aware of this.
Schmidt quickly completed basic training at Fort Benning (now Fort Moore), known as the home of the infantry. That was in 2009. It was exactly the discipline he craved, he remembers. There are clear goals and everyone is individually and collectively responsible for meeting or exceeding those goals. That is service to the country, he added.
Of course, not all goals are planned this systematically. Mr. Schmidt met his wife, Michelle, through mutual friends and they married in 2010. And over the next few years, he was deployed not once or twice, but seven times, ranging from three to 13 months to Afghanistan and Iraq. ,Syria.
In her last position, she was a platoon sergeant, but she developed an abiding love for the infantry, which the Army refers to as the “Queen of Battle” and described it as essential to the mission. is clear.
“In infantry, troops fire. They move. They communicate. And they destroy America's enemies in close combat,” he said matter-of-factly. “If the infantry fails, the mission is less likely to succeed.”
In the infantry, everyone knows this, he added. Everyone also knew that it was a mission that involved a high probability of physical danger. Nevertheless, Schmidt served for 10 years until multiple injuries from several IEDs damaged his spinal cord.
He spent a year in rehab, going through cycles of deterioration and recovery, regaining most of the function and feeling in his legs. He wanted to remain in the Army, he said. His rehabilitation was more than recovery. It was about staying in service.
And when he was informed that he was being discharged due to illness, he did what any trained infantryman would do: fight it.
“I am deeply disappointed by this news,” he said, explaining how he sought to refute the Medical Review Board's findings. “When that didn't work out, I spent a lot of time angry, sad, and aimless.”
Things he thought he could do, like law enforcement and security, are no longer possible because of his injuries. And just when he could have fallen into despair, this young man who walked through the door of an Army recruiter decided to grow up and go through another door into a different future. .
“I dabbled in video games and technology,” he explained. “And I kept going back to what the military had taught me about problem-solving and discipline. But this was a completely different battlefield.”
Eventually, he said, he made up his mind. He had never been deeply involved in technology, much less even interested in it. Before that. But now he saw it everywhere, and something about it intrigued him. By the spring of 2020, he was attending the University of Central Texas full-time and filling his schedule with courses taking twice as many history and government classes as part of his information technology degree program.
“Two years later, my grade point average was 3.9,” he said, as if he still couldn't believe his lackluster high school grades. “By that time, I had become very interested in programming, and he returned to CTC to take some of the courses he needed to get his degree in cybersecurity.”
Last December, at Texas A&M University Central Texas' graduation ceremony, Mr. Schmidt walked across the stage wearing a traditional dark blue gown and mortarboard, with a burgundy veteran's stole around his neck, marking his military service. Hanging proudly in front of him was his academic medal of honor, denoting his accomplishments. And the mortarboard tassels swung freely on his face, happily entwining in the slight curls of his trademark auburn beard whenever he waved or smiled at the audience. .
He says he was especially happy because in that moment, and on the long path from infantry to information science, he found himself again. He had completed an internship at Tridium during his final semester of classes and had been encouraged to apply for a full-time job by his friend Andrew Cadran, also a former classmate and intern.
In other words, Schmidt was happy about more than one thing that graduation day. He had his 11-inch by 17-inch degree folder engraved with his A&M Central Texas logo and literally walked to work the following Monday.
“The more I worked at Trideum, the more I liked the place and the people,” he said. “It means a lot to me to know that I am in a career that has the same sense of purpose that I found in the military and values the principles and discipline I learned as a soldier.
“And what I'm working on right now, what Trideum is working on, is to make sure that our troops are safer and more secure than they would be without us. I want to be where they are. They may not be there, but I will always support them.”
