Martin Schleis/Morton Spears – The Story of a Soldier AND a Marine.
By RoseAnn Schleis

A disabled veteran who changed his identity in order to serve his country a second time

Martin served in the U.S. Marine Corps and was injured in Okinawa (Operation Iceberg) in 1945, which led to his honorable discharge. Martin had many memories from his days in the Marines, which he only began sharing with family members in the decade before his death. One story told of being in a boat that blew up, leaving him to tread water for 24 hours waiting to be rescued. A friend survived that incident with him but was later accidentally shot by a superior and died, leaving Martin deeply affected by the loss. He told of days spent trying to shoot Japanese soldiers out of trees while always looking over his shoulder, waiting to be shot himself. His injury in Okinawa is unclear - a military book recording his injury did not specify what it was - but family differ on whether he was shot in the head or the leg. He recovered in Hawaii before being sent home.

Once home, Martin suffered post traumatic stress syndrome. He fought his mental illness for a couple of years before asking his brother (my husband) Stephen to commit him to a hospital. Martin ended up at an institution in Chillicothe and remained there for many months before walking away from the grounds. His family would not see him again for at least two decades.

Unknown to his family, Martin embarked on a new life. One day in 1954, he walked into a US Army recruiting office and asked to enlist. Being a disabled veteran, he was ineligible. But as Martin would later tell it, the recruiter offered to change his identity. He was rechristened Morton J. Spears, given a new social security, and served in the Army until 1957.

When Morton was discharged from the Army, he spoke to a lawyer about getting his old identity back, but was warned he might face fraud or forgery charges. So Morton stayed away from his family, afraid someone might turn him in.

In the late 1960s or early 1970s, one of Martin's younger brothers - who hadn't seen Martin since he was a boy - looked out of the family home in Aultman (Stark County) Ohio and saw a man sitting in a parked car. The man in the car looked just like his father, leading him to suspect the stranger was the brother who walked out of his life two decades earlier. He quickly wrote down the license plate number before the stranger drove off. A family friend in law enforcement was able to trace the plates and the address led to Morton, who was now living in Cleveland and working as a postal worker.

Martin/Morton was reunited with his family, but remained quiet about his missing years for a long time.

Martin died in 1997 and is buried at the Greentown Cemetery near his hometown. His grave is topped with two markers, each donated by a military branch honoring one of their own. Passersby would no doubt do a double take if they noticed that the Martin Schleis honored by the Marines and the Morton Spears honored by the Army shared the same birth and death dates.

Before enlisting in the Marines, Martin began attending Miami University. One of 10 children born to poor German immigrants, he was the first and only sibling to seek a higher education. The mental issues that haunted him after his service kept him from whatever future that education would have offered, but he never regretted his decision to serve his country. He proudly displayed an American flag on the wall of his Cleveland home, and reprimanded anyone who spoke ill of the country he spent so many years defending.

In his honor, the family has donated the flag that draped his casket to the Ohio Veterans Memorial Park. Martin didn't die in service, but no one could argue that he gave his life for his country. We are proud to share the story of his sacrifice with you.

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