ANTIGO — Last week, Wausau’s WAOW Channel 9 News awarded a Jefferson Award to Karl’s Transport owners Karl and Jil Schulz.
The couple was nominated for the award, given for noteworthy public service to the local community, by James Benishek, a local veteran and member of VFW Post 2653.
In his nomination letter, Benishek detailed the Schulzes’ strong support — especially through the design of their semi trailers, which he referred to as “traveling billboards” — of the military, veterans, police, and firefighters, as well as causes such autism and cancer awareness.
One of these trailers features Benishek’s brother, Fred Benishek, who was killed in the Vietnam War on June 7, 1969. James was 14 years old at the time.
“My brother John was over in Vietnam at the time, and my brother Fred was going through basic training for the Marines. He was kind of held up because they didn’t want two brothers over there at the same time. So as soon as my brother John came back to the States, my brother Fred went over. He was killed shortly after,” Benishek said. “In the Marine Corps or any branch in combat areas in the jungles and rice paddies and places like that, there was quite a turnover of troops that were killed and wounded there — I think the average grunt over there in combat areas usually got killed within three months.”
Benishek himself served a combined 20 years in the military — four years as a Navy Seabee, and then 16 more in the Army as a military policeman — and was stationed abroad everywhere from Germany to South Korea.
Benishek said that recently, Jil also donated substantially to VFW Post 2653.
“We’d just bought a new trailer to haul a lot of our VFW stuff around like flagpoles and whatever else we pack in there,” Benishek said. “We were looking at getting it detailed with our VFW Post’s information and she covered the whole cost of that, which was unexpected, and I was really grateful for it…When she did that, I just thought they deserved some recognition.”
Benishek called the Schulzs’ general dedication to community veterans “unprecedented,” which he said was especially meaningful to him because of his own deep ties to the armed forces.
“Even though I’ve been out of the service for 30 years, the military is still a big part of my life,” he said. “That’s why I eventually joined the VFW. It’s just guys who are going through the same thing. It’s hard for civilians to really understand the impact it has on guys that served. Not everybody went to combat. Some guys were just support units that were in different conflicts too. But they served overseas too and deserve just as much recognition.”
The VFW is a nonprofit that relies on donations and sales from local fundraisers. It provides scholarships, assists in military funeral details, and honors veterans past and present at parades and other community events. Its mission is to foster camaraderie among veterans of overseas conflicts, to serve local veterans and their families, and to advocate on behalf of all veterans.
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