In Their Own Words
Veterans' Stories
The Man Who Built This — Kermit Schayltz
Point Walker was built by one of the Wolfhounds himself.
Kermit Schayltz served in Vietnam from 1968 to 1970 — two one-year tours with the 25th Infantry Division. Eight months of it were spent in the field before he was pulled back to support the infantry he had fought beside.
Coming home was its own kind of war. The country had turned against the men it had sent. “You were looked at as not very smart,” he remembers, “even accused of war crimes.” Like so many, he filed it all away in a back room of his mind and did not speak of it for years. He left college, took up construction, and built a quiet life in Citrus Heights, California, where he has now lived for more than forty years.
Then, in the 1990s, character changed the course of his life. At a small poker room called the Lucky Derby, on the corner of Greenback and San Juan, the owner collapsed with a heart attack — and Kermit saved his life. When the man’s health later failed, he sold Kermit the room. One card table became thirty. Today Kermit co-owns Stones Gambling Hall, which employs more than seven hundred people at a living wage.
He has never stopped giving back — meals for the St. John’s Program for Real Change, support for the Sacramento Children’s Home, a ,000 community giveback — but his deepest work has been for his brothers.
“The cost of freedom isn’t free. For those of us who have protected those freedoms, the taste is much different.”
— Kermit Schayltz
The Wall He Is Building
In September 2025, Kermit and Scott Miller brought The Wall That Heals — the traveling replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial — to Citrus Heights. Now he is leading the effort to build something permanent: the Citrus Heights Veterans Memorial, the West Coast’s first permanent 80%-scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, to rise at Calvary Cemetery within sight of Interstate 80. The cost will exceed three million dollars. He is determined to see it built — because thirty-four of the names cut into that wall belong to men he served alongside.
Point Walker is the digital companion to that wall — a place to speak the Wolfhounds’ names, tell their stories, and make certain that the brothers who did not come home are never forgotten. To support the permanent memorial, visit the Citrus Heights Veterans Memorial Project.
Portrait of a Soldier in Viet-Nam
“Those Are Not Kids in Viet-Nam” — the beardless hope of free men
The average age of the combat GI in many units here is 18½. And what a man he is! A pink-cheeked, tousle-haired, tight-muscled fellow who under normal circumstances would be considered by society as half man, half boy, not yet dry behind the ears. But, here and now, he is the beardless hope of free men.
Generally he is unmarried and without possessions except for a car at home and a transistor radio here. He listens to rock and roll and 105s. He’s learned to like beer because it’s the thing to do and it’s often cold. He smokes, too, because the Army has included cigarettes in his field rations.
He can break down a rifle in 30 seconds and put it back together again in 29. He can describe the nomenclature of a fragmentation grenade, explain how a machine gun operates, and of course, use either if the need arises. He can also dig foxholes and apply professional first aid to a wounded companion.
He obeys now, without hesitation. But he is not broken. He has seen more suffering than he should have in his short life. He has stood among hills of bodies and he has helped construct those hills. He has wept in private and in public, and he has not been ashamed in either place, because his pals have fallen in battle and he has come close to joining them.
He will share his water with you if you thirst, break his rations in half if you hunger, split his ammunition if you are fighting for your life. He can do the work of two civilians, draw half the pay of one and find ironic humor in it all. He has learned to use his hands as a weapon and his weapon as his hands. He can save a life, or most assuredly take one.
What a man he is…
— Tom Tiede, Newspaper Enterprise Association
Hawaii Lightning News, February 4, 1966
The best way to know the Wolfhounds is to listen to the men who were there. These are their stories, in their own words.
John Quintrell — My 365 Days with the Wolfhounds
John Quintrell served with the 2nd Platoon, Charlie Company, from August 1968 to August 1969. He lost forty-five men from his platoon in that single year. For decades he told no one he was a veteran — until, in 2003, he set out to find every man he had served with. He found more than a hundred of them, recorded their stories, and built the unit’s archive at 2nd27th.com. His memoir, My 365 Days with the Wolfhounds, is an Amazon bestseller now in development as a feature film.
Jerry Tempesta — the Renegade Woods
Jerry Tempesta served with the 1st Platoon, Charlie Company, from July 1969 to July 1970. On 2 April 1970, at the Renegade Woods, his platoon was ambushed in the open. Wounded in the head, Tempesta dragged his wounded lieutenant out of the kill zone and silenced an enemy machine-gun position with a grenade. Four men in his platoon were killed that day and twelve wounded. For fifty-five years his valor went unrecognized; in 2025 he was finally awarded the Bronze Star with “V” device, and his brothers continue to push for the Medal of Honor. Today he sings a cappella for fellow veterans at the Philadelphia VA.
Jerry Todd & Mike Greenman
Two Wolfhounds of Company B, 2/27th — from different years — who met by chance at The Moving Wall when one of them heard the word “Wolfhound” called out across the crowd. Once a Wolfhound, always a Wolfhound.
Wolfhound Footage on Film
Film and footage of the Wolfhounds in Vietnam — and the war they came home from.
Wolfhounds 2/27, 1968
Original 8mm footage of the 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry in Vietnam, 1968 — filmed by Ron Warninger.
After Tet — Combat Footage, 1968
Archive documentary footage filmed after the 1968 Tet Offensive (Frontline by ITN).