Miles Funeral Service
 

Assembly/Taps Memorial Article:

Honald N. Maidt Jr. 1962

Cullum No. 24412-1962 | December 14, 2005 | Died in Winfield, KS
Interred in Highland Cemetery Cemetery, Windfield, KS

Honald Noel “Bud” “Hondo” Maidt Jr. was born on October 19, 1937 in Oklahoma City, OK. He was the son of Colonel Honald N. Maidt Sr. and Gertrude D. Maidt. As an Army brat, Bud attended high school at St. Louis College in Honolulu, HI for three years before graduating in 1955 from Welsington Academy in Williamsburg, VA. He then attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg for one year.

After receiving a congressional appointment from Oklahoma’s 5th District, Bud joined the Class of 1961. Later, after failing his “turnout cxamination,” Bud was “turned back” to the Class of 1962 and Cadet Company B-1. While most of us, his new classmates, had little knowledge about West Point and the Army, Bud had experienced it all during his lifetime to that point. He mostly operated in his own space and at his own pace as a “recognized plebe” with more respect from the upper classmen than the rest of our plebe class. Being tall and physical, he no doubt intimidated a few of the firsties as well. Hondo had some athletic skills and earned a spot on the Gymnastics C Team as a plebe in his specialty, the side horse. 

The one area of West Point that Bud did not intimidate was the Academic Department. Every semester found him struggling to survive. Yet, there was one remarkable exception in Hondo’s academic career, probably unique in West Point lore, that occurred that between his Second and First Class years, when he was “turned out” in Solid Mechanics. He and other classmates experiencing the possible end of their cadet careers had two weeks to prepare for the “turnout exam” that would determine their fate. Bud was diligent in his preparation and reported to the examination officer for the Fluid Mechanics examination. Not surprisingly, the officer-in-charge did not have Bud’s name on his list. He checked and explained to Bud, that he was scheduled to take the Solids exam, which had already started. So, having studied for the wrong exam, Bud arrived late to the Solids exam and passed! 

A year later, as June Week 1962 approached, Hondo was once again a “turnout exam” away from not graduating. Once again, he succeeded in passing the exam, though it cost him a delayed graduation of 13 days. His date of graduation and commissioning was extended to June 19, 1962. If his goal was to be the Class Goat (last in the class), he failed by finishing fifth from the bottom of our 601 graduates. The Academic Department had succeeded in extracting Bud’s last indignity from USMA!

Like the majority of Company B-1, Bud chose Infantry and joined us at Fort Benning, GA for the Infantry Officer Basic Course, Airborne and Ranger schools. He selected an assignment in Europe and served initially as an infantry platoon leader. Unfortunately, Bud’s career ended while still a second lieutenant, much like the rest of his life, with little being known of the circumstances. 

Bud next surfaced in Winfield, KS, where he worked as an application engineer for several companies. In 1970, Bud met Shirley (“Sam”) and fell in love, and they spent the next 40 years together. While they had no children of their own, Sam had six children from a previous marriage, which offered Bud plenty of opportunities to develop his parenting skills. Sam and her children were avid bowlers and there was no doubt that they developed Bud’s skills in the sport. The biggest event of the year in Winfield is the Walnut Valley Bluegrass Festival. Sam and Bud were honored for having volunteered at the “re-entry gate” for the first 25 years of its existence.

Hondo passed away on December 14, 2005 and was laid to rest in Highland Cemetery in Winfield.

Bud Maidt would agree with Henry David Thoreau’s thoughts in Walden:

Let everyone mind his own business and endeavor to be what he was made. Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak. Shall he turn his spring into summer? If the condition of things which we were made for is not yet, what were any reality which we can substitute? We will not be shipwrecked on a vain reality. Shall we with pains erect a heaven of blue glass over ourselves, though when it is done we shall be sure to gaze still at the true ethereal heaven far above, as if the former were not?

— Richard D. Chegar and B-1 classmates