Galloway leads the march to giving the man known simply as “Shifty” major recognition. He wants a nationwide memorial for the hero of World War II, who died in June this year (about the time of Michael Jackson) and is sending information out along with his article as a memorial online. This is the background of Shifty encapsulated by Galloway in his plea.
Band of Brothers on HBO, or the History Channel, where viewers have seen the story depicts Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, which was part of the 101st Airborne Infantry. Shifty was featured in all of the episodes and interviewed in one of them.
Shifty had signed up for service in the Second World War in 1941. Galloway met him one time a few years ago at the Philadelphia Airport and offered to give up his seat in First Class when he saw Shifty, then an old man, was seated in coach. Shifty simply said, “No son, you enjoy that seat. Just knowing that there are still some who remember what we did and still care is enough to make an old man happy.”
That old man who died in June this year was on the beaches of Normandy, then made a second jump into Holland during the war. Those terrible events in France and later in other areas of Europe brought the Band of Brothers television fame as they were recognized as heroes. Galloway points out what many have discussed before, there are few of these men left. That’s why he calls attention to Shifty’s death and writes how sad it was the mainstream media overlooked the man. Shifty, Galloway writes, died on June 17 from cancer, with no parade, no big event in Staples Center, no wall to wall television coverage and no weeping fans either. And that, Galloway maintains, isn’t right.
So who indeed is Shifty and what is more remarkable about his life, as Galloway declares, sufficient to be memorialized?
The Roanoke Times, one of the few papers that covered Shifty’s death at the age of 86, wrote of an interview it had done in 2001 with the famous veteran. The article mentions Shifty’s modesty and his story about how he shot a German soldier and what he thought about it years later. The reporter maintains Shifty seemed to understand the tragedy of war in that he said this about his experience: he fought and also hinted at the intrinsic tragedy of combat.
"We might have had a lot in common. He might've liked to fish, you know, he might've liked to hunt," Powers said. "Of course, they were doing what they were supposed to do, and I was doing what I was supposed to do.
"But under different circumstances, we might have been good friends."
The Tri-Cities newspaper also wrote about Shifty, a few days after the heroes’ death, talking of his exploits and quoting his daughter’s remarks about her father’s service to his country. The paper writes that “bravery – and dignity – was a constant, running thread in the life of “Shifty” Powers, both during and after his life as an Army sharpshooter in the actual “Band of Brothers.”While in the war, the battles he fought with his Band of Brothers involved brutal combat against the Germany Army in France and Belgium.
Margo Johnson, Shifty’s daughter, was quoted as saying this after her father’s death, “I loved everything about my daddy,” Johnson said. “He never bragged about what he did in the war. And for a lot of years, he never even talked much about what he did – unless someone asked him about it.”
“But he truly was a hero to me,” Johnson said. “Just like he’d been to the people who know him as a soldier in a [mini-series].”
Galloway believes Shifty is the kind of hero America should remember and memorialize as well. He doesn’t do so within a political camp, either Democrat or Republican. He ends his thesis with a quote from a poem, “A Soldier Died Today” as I do this article about it, ,
If we cannot do him honor while he’s here to hear the praise,
Then at least let’s give him homage at the ending of his days.
Perhaps just a simple headline in a paper that would say,
Our Country is in mourning, for a soldier died today.”
And this final quote as well."
“A nation without heroes is nothing.” – Roberto Clemente
RIP Shifty - You truly were one of the Band of Brothers, a hero by all accounts -
