This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
There must be something about the Skyline High classes of the mid-1960s.
David Schwendiman, Class of 1965, was recently nominated to be the new chief prosecutor for the European Union's effort to investigate people involved in war crimes and illicit organ trafficking in Kosovo.
Earlier, Schwendiman, who served in the U.S. attorney's office for Utah, was an international prosecutor in the Special Department of War Crimes for Bosnia and Herzegovina. He also had assignments from the Department of Justice in three Olympics and stints in Bahrain, Vietnam, Thailand and Bangladesh.
Walter Plumb, Class of 1964, just returned from a nearly yearlong adventure in northern Iraq's Kurdistan region, where he was the point person for LDS Charities to supply aid and comfort to hundreds of thousands of Syrian and Iraqi refugees.
Plumb, a Salt Lake City attorney and developer, was picked by the LDS Church, he believes, because he grew up in Chicago — before moving to Utah during his high school years — and attended law school in New York.
"They wanted someone who could be street tough," said Plumb, a member of Skyline's wrestling team way back when.
Plumb is a former law partner of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and a business associate of well-connected developer Kem Gardner, helping to entrench him in religious and political power circles.
Plumb spent the first few months of his recent assignment gathering food, clothing, bedding, blankets and other essentials, and then distributing them to refugee camps.
He came back to Utah briefly in the summer while the Muslim world celebrated Ramadan. When he returned, the mission changed.
Islamic State extremists had begun a war of destruction, and cities in the region were falling like dominoes.
Driving through Iraq, Plumb says, "I saw people everywhere trying to get away. They were on the side of the road, helpless, with nowhere to go."
The need so impressed him that he donated $400,000 of his own money to the cause. He also called Hatch, because Plumb sensed a lack of urgency in the U.S. about the crisis.
"I told him the U.S. had to do something or the whole country would fall and ISIS would control the oil fields."
Plumb said he had an open airline ticket to Turkey that he carried with him at all times in case he had to flee.
The Kurdish military, with U.S. help, eventually beat back the attacks, but the extremists remain a major threat in the region.
When the rebels had tens of thousands of Christians trapped on top of a mountain, the U.S. military dropped 90,000 parkas that had been donated by LDS Charities to the freezing refugees.
A key player was Bruce Carlson, an LDS general authority and a retired Air Force general.
"He was amazing," Plumb said. "He could move mountains."
Or, in this case, get people off them.