{"id":69362,"date":"2016-12-12T11:46:43","date_gmt":"2016-12-12T16:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=69362"},"modified":"2016-12-12T18:19:17","modified_gmt":"2016-12-12T23:19:17","slug":"eric-schmitt-matzen-and-his-sad-santa-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=69362","title":{"rendered":"Eric Schmitt-Matzen and his sad Santa story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><a href=\"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?attachment_id=69363\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-69363\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Eric-Schmitt-Matzen-250x333.jpg?resize=250%2C333\" alt=\"Eric Schmitt-Matzen\" width=\"250\" height=\"333\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-69363\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Eric-Schmitt-Matzen.jpg?resize=250%2C333&amp;ssl=1 250w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Eric-Schmitt-Matzen.jpg?resize=225%2C300&amp;ssl=1 225w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Eric-Schmitt-Matzen.jpg?w=534&amp;ssl=1 534w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>A number of folks have sent us this story in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/nation-now\/2016\/12\/11\/cried-all-way-home-santa-claus-grants-final-wish-dying-child\/95315536\/\">USATODAY<\/a> about Eric Schmitt-Matzen and one of his trips to the hospital in his Santa Claus persona to visit a sick child. Schmitt-Matzen claims that he served in the 1\/75th Rangers for four years, and I want to believe him.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cWhen I walked in, he was laying there, so weak it looked like he was ready to fall asleep. I sat down on his bed and asked, \u2018Say, what\u2019s this I hear about you\u2019re gonna miss Christmas? There\u2019s no way you can miss Christmas! Why, you\u2019re my Number One elf!<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe looked up and said, \u2018I am?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI said, \u2018Sure!\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI gave him the present. He was so weak he could barely open the wrapping paper. When he saw what was inside, he flashed a big smile and laid his head back down.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018\u201cThey say I\u2019m gonna die,\u2019 he told me. \u2018How can I tell when I get to where I\u2019m going?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI said, \u2018Can you do me a big favor?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe said, \u2018Sure!\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you get there, you tell \u2019em you\u2019re Santa\u2019s Number One elf, and I know they\u2019ll let you in.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe said, \u2018They will?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI said, \u2018Sure!\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe kinda sat up and gave me a big hug and asked one more question: \u2018Santa, can you help me?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wrapped my arms around him. Before I could say anything, he died right there. I let him stay, just kept hugging and holding on to him.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The 75th Ranger Regiment says that he is a Ranger;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2F75thRangerRegiment1942%2Fposts%2F1537990969549922&#038;width=500\" width=\"500\" height=\"611\" style=\"border:none;overflow:hidden\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A number of folks have sent us this story in USATODAY about Eric Schmitt-Matzen and one of his trips to the hospital in his Santa Claus persona to visit a sick child. Schmitt-Matzen claims that he served in the 1\/75th Rangers for four years, and I want to believe him. \u201cWhen I walked in, he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":69363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[226],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-veterans-in-the-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Eric-Schmitt-Matzen.jpg?fit=534%2C712&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ozh1-i2K","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/69363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}