Apr 8, 2013

Retired U.S. Navy Capt. Robert J. Schuster, 84, passed away in Penn Laird, Va., Saturday, April 6, 2013, after a lengthy bout with pancreatic cancer.

A son of the late Michael and Stella Gilles Schuster, Capt. Schuster was born in Midway.

A 1946 graduate of McDonald High School, he went on to Penn State University under a Navy scholarship.

Upon graduation from Penn State in 1950, he was commissioned as ensign in the U.S. Navy and received orders to a destroyer, operating out of Pearl Harbor. A short time after reporting onboard, his ship was deployed to Korea, where it operated in support of United Nations forces as part of Task Forces 77 and 95.

For the next 24 years, Capt. Schuster served in a wide variety of shipboard and shore assignments, ranging from Operation Ivy, the first test of a hydrogen bomb detonated off Eniwetok atoll in the South Pacific, to operations with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea during the Suez and Lebanon crisis.

Subsequent to retirement from active duty, Capt. Schuster wrote three novels and a collection of sea stories based on his navy experiences, while at the same time avidly pursuing his hobbies of sailing, skiing and scuba diving.

Surviving are his loving and devoted wife of 62 years, Shirley; five children, Michael Robert Schuster of Williamsburg, Va., Shirley Ann Mills of St. Inigoes, Md., Lt. retired U.S. Marine Corps Col. Daniel James Schuster of the Netherlands, Robert J. Schuster Jr. of Katy, Texas, and Pamela Roden Spann of Fort Myers, Fla.; five grandchildren, Anna Elizabeth Roden Spann of Boston, Mass., Edward R. Roden, a student at Florida State University, Jarrett James Mills, a student at the University of Alabama, Thomas James Schuster and Kyla Marie Schuster, living at home with their parents in Katy; and a sister, Lucille LeCouvre of San Diego, Calif.

Family members, good friends and neighbors showed loving care and support for Capt. Schuster.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Wednesday, April 10, in Massanutten Presbyterian Church, Penn Laird, presided over by the Rev. John Leggett and the Rev. Ann Pettit. Interment will be in Arlington National Cemetery at a later date. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to one’s favorite charity.