As a post-Seminary graduation treat, I took the time needed to watch the entire "Band of Brothers" series (thanks Jeromy and Beth for loaning or lending, whichever is grammatically correct).
What an amazing series that is. Ordinary men, placed in extraordinary circumstances, accomplished remarkable things.
Shifty Powers was one of those men. He grew up in humble settings and enlisted when the war started. He took 6 practice jumps in training and was part of the 101st Airborne, which was being formed to try a new form of combat with gritty, semi-sane soldiers called "paratroopers." Shifty and Co. were dropped inland on June 6th, 1944 (D-Day). He fought in every battle that Easy Company faced for the rest of the war. He was considered the best shot in the entire company. During the Battle at Bastogne, he placed a shot between the eyes of a German sniper who had concealed himself extremely well and who had shot a number of US troops. All he could see of the sniper was a faint whisp of breath (it was bitterly cold).
Having survived the fighting, he was desperate to go home. He didn't have enough "points" to be discharged. But, HQ had authorized each company to hold a raffle to send a man home early--sort of a morale lifter. The rest of Easy Company--by now made up mostly of replacement soldiers--conspired to rig the raffle so that Shifty could go home. Sadly, Shifty didn't get home for months--his jeep had an accident on the way to the airport and he was seriously injured. All the other GI's rotated out of the service before he could even leave the hospital in Europe.
Shifty lived a full life following that. He worked for a coal company and had a family. He never talked to his family about his involvements and experiences in the war. He and his company were true-to-life war heroes. Not run of the mill soldiers, but the stuff of legend. Once Ambrose wrote the Band of Brothers book...and Spielberg and Tom Hanks made the series...all of a sudden his family saw their dad, grandpa, uncle in a radically new light.
You can see interviews of Shifty in the series itself--each episode starts with some 50-year-later interviews of the real veterans of Easy Company.
Now...Here's the deal. Shifty died on June 17th. So did Michael Jackson. Shifty's death has been completely obscured by the death of Jackson and the circus attendant thereto. Shifty saved more lives, risked far more, and all without agents or handlers. His death was totally swallowed up by Jackson's.
I'm FAR more grateful for Shifty and millions of other patriots who served this country over the years. And when I die, I hope and pray that there can be some shred of heroism from my life that my family and friends can savor.
