On July 2, 1943, three days after high school graduation in Detroit, William Schwartz was drafted into the U.S. Army. He received training at Fort Riley, Kan., boot camp and then Calvary horse riding training. His official Military Occupation Specialty was Construction Foreman #059. However, he recalled most duties involved infantry and reconnaissance.

After being assigned to the 36th Combat Engineers / Company B 2826th Engineer Battalion, Schwartz was sent to fight on the European front. The 36th had already completed four major invasions of the war. Schwartz joined the group as a “replacement” prior to the fifth and final amphibious assault with the invasion of southern France in 1944, code named Operation Dragoon. By the time Bud Schwartz joined the 36th, it had been completely replenished three times with replacements. Their invasion time was “H Hour” -6 (minutes). They landed on August 15th in a Landing Craft Infantry. The Dragoon force met up with southern thrusts from Operation Overlord (Normandy Invasion) in mid-September, near Dijon, France.

The 36th supported Allied units through three additional campaigns up until the end of the war: the Rhineland Campaign, the Ardennes-Alsace Campaign, and the Central European Campaign. Upon returning to the New York harbor, they were greeted only by a Red Cross worker. After being handed a doughnut and a half a pint of milk, they were hustled down the pier to waiting Army trucks. After the war, Schwartz returned to the U.S. and eventually settled in Eden Prairie where he raised his children.

He has been a lifetime member of the VFW in Hopkins, Minn., and he was part of the original committee that created and built the Eden Prairie Veterans Memorial where he raised the American flag for the first time for a huge crowd during the historic “First Flag Raising” on Veterans Day in 2007.