PAUL BITZ  Certainly “DID Do It His Way” – Some Few Memories of an Old Dear Friend

By. City Councilmen Dr. Dan Adams

I wanted to say a few words on Paul Bitz’s behalf yesterday at his funeral service, but the Padre said we would be there all day if he had opened the service up for comments from the floor.  So this memorata, written on the cold, next day full of sleet, has to suffice.  Born in 1923, Paul would have been 10 to slog through the Depression.  The people who survived that time were tough, as it really scarred them.   They knew what it was like to be in a time and place where no matter how smart, or how determined, or how hard a worker you were, some just failed and fell to the wayside.  If you made it, you retained a hard core, diamond belief of never giving up.  My Mom canned vegetables every Fall “just in case”…

Paul learned to type train schedules part-time after school during the week and on Saturdays, while going to Reitz High School.  That simple skill probably saved his life because he was assigned to be the company clerk of his combat engineering battalion during WW II.   Like many of his generation, Paul did not like to talk about his military experience.  Under the guise of a U.S. Navy doc, I got him to open up to me.  Joining the Army in March of ’43, he found himself in Burma some 3-4 months later with Japanese shooting at him at one end of the B-29 runway that they were building and tigers roaming in the jungle at the other end of it.  Some 10,000 Chinese coolies, both men and women, shirtless in the tropical heat, carried baskets of dirt on their heads on a continuous line steadily for long hours to bring material to the two bulldozers.  The battalion worked 14-16 hours a day, seven days a week for the years that they were in the Burmese combat zone.

About four months before his death, Paul began telling me more about his combat experiences.  For example, he shyly admitted that he had been wounded.  He and a sergeant were running a much needed, jeep full of mortar and Garand rifle ammo, out to the front lines that were under fire at dusk.  They decided to pull over to the side of the track because they were afraid of snipers.  Sure enough, just as they stopped, Paul took a bullet in his high lateral right calf, a through and through wound of his leg.  Frightened, they quickly took off driving again, delivered the ammo and then went to the battalion aid station, where Paul’s wound was treated.  Because there was no injury to any bone, artery or major vein, the wound was washed out, dusted with Sulfur powder, and wrapped.  Paul claimed that he never was flown out to a hospital; but rather he was treated just at the battalion aid station with limited duty for a week, before returning to full activity.

Paul’s Colonel, the head of the combat engineer battalion, was Jewish.  Paul noted that his boss was assigning all the new arrivals of that religion to the safety of the motor pool, even though their MOS did not rate that pigeon hole.   Paul, being the 21-year old, know-it-all guy he was, told his boss that he was making a big mistake.  Paul was told to shut up.  Sometime later, the Colonel was fired by the visiting Inspector General.  No one knew who turned the Colonel in… but I suspect we do…

Paul, like many veterans, felt that he had ALOT of catching up to do when he got back from overseas.  His nine kids, all of whom went to college, are maybe some indication of what he had in mind.  Of course long before the first child, being a good Catholic boy, he had married Tena, a wonderful Catholic lady who was way too good for him.  He quickly got deeply involved in Veteran affairs and their organizations right after the War, as a vehicle on which to cut his political teeth.  Paul told me that the candidate for State Senate was determined on a round robin system by each county, serially providing a one for each successive election.  When he decided to run, he was told that it was not Vanderburgh County’s turn and he would have to wait. Waiting was NOT one of Paul’s strengths, so he told the powers-that-be to go to hell, ran and won.

His early nickname in the State Legislature became “Bill-a-Minute Bitz” because he entered so many bills for consideration.  Paul also believed in not just reaching across the political aisle, but rather often walking across it.  He proudly told me that he had as many Republican friends as Democrats and tried very hard to read every bill in detail.  Often, many members of both parties would come to him just before a vote to ask his advice on how to cast theirs, knowing that he would tell them honestly what the bill’s essential issues were.

Paul’s classic campaign manager experience was taking Vance Hartke from Mayor of Evansville to the U.S. Senate in one leap!   I am told it had never been done before or since!   Paul had a touch of a political Forrest Gump in his life in that he was just a plain, very smart guy who met and aided many of the great political greats of late 20^th century, including both Kennedy brothers, their families and many others.  Lyndon Johnson’s famous bag man, Bobbie Baker, once opened a black brief case one morning and handed Paul $50,000 cash to cover Hartke’s TV expenses.  Baker then quickly left, saying he had another similar appointment in Kansas City, MO that night.  Paul certainly knew the peccadilloes of all the Hoosier politicians.

I personally did not get to know him until some ten years ago, during the Bryan Hartke campaign for Congress.  It was readily apparent that Paul felt that HE was the boss and the candidate was the puppet.  This philosophy caused much turmoil when he was kind enough to help me with my first campaign for Evansville City Councilman.  Paul could churn out 15-30 ideas a week and was great at spending my money !   Our egos clashed often, but never our friendship.  One time, I recall we got mad at each other so intensely that he would not answer his phone after he had hung up on me in a huge fit of pique.  Finally, I got his answering machine and quietly told it, knowing he was listening, that if he did not calm down and call me right back, I was going to call his kids and tell them all that he had had a psychotic break and needed to be committed to a psychiatric ward !  He did call right back and was very polite for a few days.

Paul used to think he was a great driver and loved to take trips.  He persuaded me often to go with him to Indianapolis, when he would visit his wonderful cardiologist, Dr Richard Kovack, at IUMS.   He would ask the Judge O’Connor to go too.  The Judge would sit in the right front seat and I often would sit in the right back.  The poor Judge had more difficulty putting up with Paul’s driving antics than I.  Finally, I thought the Judge needed some moral support, so on one particular Indy trip, I too pretended to be apprehensive and yell out corrections often at the slightest suggestion of any vehicular infringement.  One could easily tell Paul’s internal ire was climbing due to my chipping away at him.    Finally, just after we swept onto I-64 east of Louisville on our home leg, he reared around and fixed me in his maniacal sight for a full fifteen seconds.  Who knew where the car was going …?  “YOU SON of a BITCH, I am NEVER going to take you on ANY more trips !!!”, he spewed.  By then, Judge O’Connor had one hand on the wheel, driving for Paul.   Paul’s driving and vision got somewhat better once both his cataracts were removed, demystifying his sight.

Over his last few years, Paul developed a benign, but progressively growing Warthin’s right parotid tumor.  I told him his brain was going mushy so God was having him grow a new one on the right side of his face !   The mass got so big that the skin began to stretch in one area up behind his ear.  I was worried about an impending skin rupture.  As surgery was thought to be not possible due to tumor removal nerve damage, I went online to see if I could find any mention of possible radiotherapy for this non-cancerous condition.   And finally, I found ONE obscure case in the literature of someone who had tried it with modest success.

Dr. Steve Becker was consulted; and with great effort, he kindly found a young radiotherapist who agreed to see Paul in consult in Bloomington.  Of course, Paul insisted that I go with him.  We arrived and were ushered in.  A thorough, complete consult was done.  The physician laid out a course of radiotherapy of some many rads a day for five days a week for five weeks.  Paul immediately told the guy he was too busy to commit to that tight a schedule.  He would come up to Bloomington three days a week …Monday, Wednesday and Friday every other week for twelve weeks.  The doc and I cracked up.  Here the MD was giving Paul a break in doing the treatment at all, and classically Paul was telling him how it was going to come down!  They finally worked out a compromise…

Over the years, Paul taught me many things about politics. He was my Merlin for my new humanistic career…He was certainly not perfect, slightly flawed, never lost for an opinion, lovingly profane as I, indefatigable, and always with a laugh.  In addition, he gave me a new, acquired loveable family.

Many, many lessons were learned on the run. A few were:  There are no emergencies in politics.  It is ALWAYS the issue, never the individual.  Be aware of an issue’s constantly changing consensus. If you give your word to vote on an issue, you keep it.  If you cannot, you say so as early as you can.  If some new data comes in that forces you to change your opinion, you go to the promised person and tell him/her up front why.   Never forget who you work for…every tax payer out there.  Work to constantly develop Value for each a tax dollar. Answer every call and listen hard.  Go see every complaint that you can.  Do your homework.  Get independent data on every issue and vote your conscience.   Finally, exasperated with me, Paul once loudly blurted out that he had created a “Political Monster!”  No better accolade from Paul Bitz could have been given me.  All thanks to him…

H. Dan Adams, MD FACS MBA                                                                                                          Evansville City Councilman At-Large

By Jeremy Heath        

During World War II, Evansville went hard to work to serve the cause of Freedom. With a workforce of nearly 20,000 people, Evansville became the largest inland producer of Tank Landing Ships, or LST’s. Currently, Evansville is privileged to be the home to the very last operational ship that ‘won the war’: the LST-325.

I say ‘currently’ because that might not always be the case. From time to time, other cities have attempted to lure our pride from our city.  So far, the board of the LST has always loyally turned down these other offers. However, if our city leadership continues to ignore the importance of having the last operational LST, of having a living piece of our history, we cannot expect the offers to always be refused.

Later this month, British film makers will be arriving in our city to film the LST for their documentary on ‘Operation Torch’. This will undoubtedly spur another round of interest by other cities and result in more attempts to claim our ship as their own.

I applaud the resolution introduced by council woman Brinkerhoff-Riley and passed by Evansville Council in January, but this is just not enough.

To begin with, many feel that the current location is completely unacceptable. The city of Evansville needs to find a more suitable port of harbor for our ship so that we may put our history on display with pride.

We have the great potential to bring in even more money and tourism if we move the LST to an area in which we can modify specifically to boast of our history. The Mead Johnson terminal at the port of Evansville is just one such place.

There, we would find a suitable area to establish the WWII museum, which would accent the contributions of Evansville to the war effort. Plenty of space for retailers exists that would provide for visitors, and there is an ample amount of parking areas. We could even have the old crane that was the last one to load LSTs to sit proudly by the very last LST.

As added bonus, the Greenway could be expanded even further westward, and the added tourism could do more to revitalize the downtown area than some of the current plans that have been considered.

Visiting veterans and their families will be able find more desirable surroundings, more services, and actually be encouraged to spend more time (and money) in our city.

Sadly, some feel that it is more important to allow the LST to sit in stagnant waters, finding funding for less important projects than to actually act. I encourage the city to fight as fiercely to protect our ship, as the men who fought fiercely aboard these ships did to protect our nation, and to find the funding needed to make the necessary moves.  After all, what is more important than preserving the little bit our history that we have left?

POSTED WITHOUT OPINION, BIAS OR EDITING