Born in Chicago, Illinois, Dr. Robert Shankland moved to Valparaiso with his family at the age of 11 and has lived there ever since. After graduating from Valparaiso High School in 1959, Shankland went on to the University of Michigan to get his undergraduate degree. In 1966, he graduated as a Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS).
RIght after college, he got his first job at a practice where he was working with children. Shankland eventually wanted his own practice but ended up volunteering for the Draft. America was at war during this time, and while Shankland didn’t want to lose anything, he still wanted to serve his country. He ended up doing just that – he went to Vietnam as a dentist.
“I knew I was going to be drafted,” Shankland said. “I had a terrific job where I didn't have a big investment of a practice that I'd have to leave.”
The commitment for the war was six years. Shankland was a member of the Army and served two years of active duty. He was a member of the 82nd Airborne Division in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The tour that changed Shankland’s life was the one in Vietnam.
“I felt obligated to support my country, and Vietnam was what was happening in the world in those days,” said Shankland. “The Army provided good postgraduate training in dentistry, so I got some of that along the way as well.”
Like most veterans, the war had an effect on Shankland, but he tends to focus on the more positive experiences he got out of war than the bad.
“I've been home now from Vietnam, for 50 years and seven months physically, but mentally I'm still there,” Shankland said. “That's not a bad thing because hardly a day goes by that I don't remember something that I did, someone that I knew, or something that I learned. It really did change my life.”
While Shankland doesn’t dismiss the fact that the war happened, he also reflected on the positive aspects as well. He mentioned that he was armed and saw things that he wished he hadn’t, but that was the world at the time. Shankland mentioned that he had to work in camps without electricity, on the battlefield, and sometimes out of an armored truck. He worked anywhere and everywhere.
“While I was armed, I wasn't in a position where I had to actually fire my weapon,” said Shankland. “I was in a lot of places, some more remote than others, but these places allowed me to practice dentistry and meet interesting people.”
Shankland has much gratitude and honor that he was able to be of service to his country during this time and the effect the war had on him. Any chance he gets, he loves telling people about the two most interesting patients he had while in Vietnam: a famous comedian and a canine.
“I met Martha Raye – who was a comedian from the ‘30s to the ‘60s – at a special forces camp where she was a nurse,” Shankland said.
Shankland’s second most interesting client was a canine. This canine was actually a soldier himself; it was a Marine’s guard dog, and dentition for a guard dog was very important, so Shankland came to the rescue.
“One interesting patient I had was a very nice dog. When I went to Vietnam, I knew some veterinarians that were in the Army,” Shankland said. “The veterinarian I knew gave me a call and told me about a guard dog with a broken tooth, and a guard dog isn't much use if it can't bite somebody. They asked if I could do a crown, I did just that, and everyone was happy.”
Taking what he learned out in the field once Shankland was able to return home, he ran his own dentistry practice for over 50 years in Valparaiso. Now that he has retired, Shankland’s heart is just as big as it was when he pledged his life to helping people. He fills his time up with community service. Shankland loves his community and does anything he can to better it; a lot of what Shankland does is in tandem with the Kiwanis Club of Valparaiso. If Shankland isn’t helping the Kiwanis Club, he is an active member of his church, First United Methodist Church of Valparaiso. If Shankland isn’t on the ground helping his community, he can be seen flying radio-controlled airplanes throughout the Region.