I do hope you all won't mind indulging me with this. I believe it's very relevant.


From: Chuck Yeager <chucky9@usa.net>
Sent: Fri, Jul 10, 2009 1:02 pm
Subject: Memorial Service: you're invited.
 
We're hearing a lot today about big splashy memorial services.
I want a nationwide memorial service for Darrell "Shifty" Powers.

Shifty volunteered for the airborne in WWII and served with Easy  
Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st  
Airborne Infantry. If you've seen Band of Brothers on HBO or the  
History Channel, you know Shifty. His character appears in all 10  
episodes, and Shifty himself is interviewed in several of them.

I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. I didn't  
know who he was at the time. I just saw an elderly gentleman having  
trouble reading his ticket. I offered to help, assured him that he was  
at the right gate, and noticed the "Screaming Eagle," the symbol of  
the 101st Airborne, on his hat.

Making conversation, I asked him if he'd been in the 101st Airborne  
or if his son was serving. He said quietly that he had been in the  
101st. I thanked him for his service, then asked him when he served,  
and how many jumps he made.

Quietly and humbly, he said "Well , I guess I signed up in 1941 or so,  
and was in until sometime in 1945 .. . . " at which point my heart  
skipped.

At that point, again, very humbly, he said "I made the 5 training  
jumps at Toccoa, and then jumped into Normandy . . . . do you know  
where Normandy is?" At this point my heart stopped.

I told him "yes, I know exactly where Normandy is, and I know what  
D-Day was." At that point he said "I also made a second jump into  
Holland , into Arnhem ." I was standing with a genuine war hero . . . .  
and then I realized that it was June, just after the anniversary of  
D-Day..

I asked Shifty if he was on his way back from France , and he said  
"Yes. And it's real sad because, these days, so few of the guys are  
left, and those that are, lots of them can't make the trip." My heart  
was in my throat and I didn't know what to say.

I helped Shifty get onto the plane and then realized he was back in  
Coach while I was in First Class. I sent the flight attendant back to  
get him and said that I wanted to switch seats. When Shifty came  
forward, I got up out of the seat and told him I wanted him to have  
it, that I'd take his in coach.

He said "No, son, you enjoy that seat. Just knowing that there are  
still some who remember what we did and who still care is enough to  
make an old man very happy." His eyes were filling up as he said it.  
And mine are brimming up now as I write this.

Shifty died on June 17 after fighting cancer.

There was no parade.
No big event in Staples Center .
No wall to wall back to back 24x7 news coverage.
No weeping fans on television.
And that's not right.

Let's give Shifty his own Memorial Service, online, in our own quiet  
way. Please forward this email to everyone you know. Especially to the  
veterans.

Rest in peace, Shifty.

Chuck Yeager, MajGen. [ret.]  



Respectfully,

Just an update on the posting of the email attributed to Maj.Gen. Chuck Yeager: A friend tipped me off to the fact that this account was NOT authored by Yeager. SNOPES (fact finding search engine) confirms this. The information about Darrell "Shifty" Powers IS correct, however, and we should remember him for his service.
Respectfully,

We purchased our house from Mr. Eugene Cook, who served with the 1/506 Parachute Infantry, 101st Airborne Division. We had a bit of a connection; different wars, but the same willingness to jump out of perfectly good airplanes!

Mr. Cook shared a book of poems he wrote after the War. Here's one:

COMBAT

The line between life
And death
Has the sharpness of a
Razor.

For a day
Begun
With the laughter
And comraderie
Of a friend - may
End with a
Furtive glance
A search
A realization

The friend has not
Returned.

And the agony
Of trying to explain to
A wife
A sweetheart
A mother

Is replaced only by
A numbness -
Which succumbs
Finally
To unconconsciousness
And sleep.

Interrupted
Not by fighting
Or shelling,
But only
By your own

Screams

Bill, when did you go through jump school?  Was it at Benning?

Quote :

Curtis Makamson wrote : Bill, when did you go through jump school?  Was it at Benning?

Curtis,

I went through Jump School at the Fort Benning School for Wayward Boys in October 1969. I went to Jump School after completing a fun-filled twelve weeks at the NCO School, where they turned Privates into Buck Sergeants.  

I was in basic at Ft Polk in Oct 69.  After infantry AIT at Polk I went to Ft Knox to APC driver school.  Then there were those wonderful Ft Benning towers. Next on the agenda was a little known oriental country.

Curtis,

After Jump School, I was ordered to Fort Polk, to work as an NCO for one cycle of 11B AIT. I was awarded, for all my good work, with an all expense paid trip to a tropical paradise in SE Asia. I was assigned to the 173rd. Airborne Brigade.

Funny, I've been to Fort Polk in the middle of the winter and the middle of the summer. The winter was worse. Coldest damn place I've ever been. The damp cold wind blew right through you.  

Quote :

Bill wrote :   Fort Benning School for Wayward Boys

I have driven through Ft Benning on my way from Albany, GA to Columbus, GA... but that is the extent of my experience there.

 

Quote :

lhsnj wrote :   I have driven through Ft Benning on my way from Albany, GA to Columbus, GA... but that is the extent of my experience there.

Greg,

Lucky you!  

This things turned into quite a piece of spam. I've gotten it at least 10 times. No slite to shifty.

Bill,
When we were going through what was supposed to be authentic 11 butch Vietnam training at Ft Polk's north fort it was sleeting.  I guess the scenario got busted.

Would you believe there is now a Civil War reenactment at DeRidder, LA?  I've never been.  It's too close to Diseaseville to take a chance on.  

--Last edited by Curtis Makamson on 2009-07-22 18:55:33 --

Quote :

Curtis Makamson wrote : Bill, When we were going through what was supposed to be authentic 11 butch Vietnam training at Ft Polk's north fort it was sleeting.  I guess the scenario got busted.

Curtis,

There must be two weeks in the Spring and two weeks in the Fall when the weather at Fort Puke is something close to reasonable. During my military career, I missed those four weeks!  

Bill, please excuse the length of this post.  Some time back a story was written about a lad who spent a bit of time at Ft Polk.  The following is an excerpt from that tale.  Maybe it will bring back a memory or two.

Cattle trailers!  They were cattle trailers.  The fool things were nothing short of flat out livestock trailers.  Patrick Smyth knew precisely what they were and they were cattle trailers.  There was no mistaking them for something else.  Patrick couldn’t believe what he was seeing.  He tried hard, really hard, to convince himself he was not seeing them, but there they were right in font of him.  Cattle trailers!!  Patrick had seen plenty of them and seen them on a regular basis.  These ubiquitous trailers were on Mississippi roads every Monday morning just as regular as the Monday morning sale at the local stock yards.  Stock yards were scattered all across the state, especially up in the hills.  These trailers were parked by the dozens adjacent to the stock yard.  They were parked out there with all manner of unmentionable ooze oozing down their sides.  You knew what that ooze was but it was best that it remain in the realm of being unmentionable.  There was no mistaking them for exactly what they were.  Even though they were painted the universal Army olive drab green, they were livestock trailers.  Cattle hauling trailers.
Patrick had been in the Army long enough to know that everything was referred to by an abbreviation instead of its full name.  So, in order to be accurate in terminology for that time and place, it would be more correct to say they were painted OD green.  All of that aside, they were what hogs and cows were hauled around in out in what was getting to be more of a foreign country:  The civilian world..  Horses, being created more equal among livestock, merited better transportation, but not so hogs and cows.   And it soon became apparent soldiers fell into the same category as hogs and cows.
These cattle trailers were the eighteen wheel variety.  They were the big ones and there were three of them.  They roared up in a whirling cloud of black diesel smoke and sat there chortling as the heavily starched Smoky Bear hatted cadre members flew into what was now a predictable rage.
These trailers had vertical stakes spaced at regular intervals around the sides.  Horizontal pieces were attached to the vertical ones to keep the livestock confined in the trailer.  It was a fence around the outside edge of the trailer.  The same fence apparatus worked equally well for confining soldiers.  Down each side of the trailer was a narrow bench.  It was just wide enough for a little skinny butted soldier’s hips to rest upon it.  Running down the center of the trailer was another bench.  It was wide enough for skinny butted soldiers to sit back to back.  On the back, the loading end of the trailer, was a retractable ladder.
Loading cattle trailers is something that drill sergeants can do quite well.  Not only are they proficient at the loading of them, they can do it quickly.  The young soldiers were kicked, shoved, prodded, and cussed up into the trailers.  It was then these same young soldiers found out what the Army calls sitting close together is nothing at all compared to that same concept out in the civilian world.  Incidentally, that civilian world, even though looking better and better, was steadily slipping further and further away.  It was the aforementioned foreign country.  After considerable drill sergeant induced motivation that came in the form of slapping and pushing, all accompanied by non-stop profanity, those seated were seated as close as only the Army can get them.  There they were.  One double row going down the center with the loaded young men seated back to back.  The rows extending down each side of the trailer had more trainees tightly, tightly packed onto them.  
Complicating this procedure was each young troop had his duffle bag stuffed to the brim with his newly issued uniform items.  The Army issued things like wool socks, tee shirts, drawers, fatigue shirts and fatigue pants in sixes.  You got six of each.  Then there was the khaki uniform, one each.  This was followed by a class A uniform, one each, with appropriate nylon socks, poplin shirt, and tie.  Accompany these were field jacket ,overcoat, and raincoat, one each.  Two pair of combat boots, one on their feet, one in the duffle bag, one pair of what the Army called low quarters, a garrison hat that for some never explained reason the Army called a cunt cap, a baseball cap, three bath rags and three towels were squeezed, smashed, smushed into that duffle bag as tightly as the troops were on the cattle trailers.  There were belts, buckles, assorted metal do dads and name plates that went on the uniforms,  and, mister, there better not be anything sticking out and it best be locked with the Army issue brass pad lock.  The key to which was suspended around their neck from their dog tag chain.  So each of these young troopers clambered up that loading ladder with a considerable load.
Then to the total and complete astonishment of the novice soldiers, the loading continued.  You see, it is not necessary for every soldier to have a seat.  More trainees were herded up the loading ladder and these stood in the space in front of the seated others, each of them holding their own duffle bag.  Once these young people were packed as close as they could stand, they were ordered to turn and sit in the laps of the already loaded passengers.  You have to visualize this.  Those seated had their duffle bags in their laps.  The duffle bags of the seated soldiers, were gathered up by the ones soon to be sitting in their laps.  The lap sitters now were holding two duffle bags in their lap, actually one upright on each leg.  
The loading continued and another bunch of trainees were soon cussed up the ladder and they managed to wedge their feet in the tiny, tiny bit of remaining space.  It was not necessary for all feet to be in contact with the bed of the trailer.  It was perfectly acceptable if some of those feet were actually on top of other such feet.  These had to remain standing.  They had to remain standing and hold onto their duffle bag.  Yep, that’s the Army way.
In short order, two hundred fifty trainees had been loaded onto three cattle trailers.  It is safe to say there was no unoccupied space.  It is equally safe to say these young men were about as uncomfortable as could be.  A whole cattle trailer had been transformed into a sardine can.
As shocked as the trainees were at being so rudely and semi-barbarically stuffed onto cow trailers, they would have been even more shocked, doubly shocked, to learn that in weeks to come they would literally cherish the sight of those trailers.  Those same trailers would literally become visions of loveliness and approach being items for worship.  The sound of those straining diesel engines would be soothing music.  
Cattle trailers were the second most preferred mode of transportation at Fort Polk.  The first choice was marching, marching in brand spanking new boots  The new boots were soon, very soon, broken in, but at present, not at all.  The trainees didn’t have to make too many marches before those cattle trailers were no longer items of shock and dread.  Soon, very soon, the trainees would be able to stuff themselves onto those trailers tighter than the scales on a fish and they could do it with hardly any supervision.  Wonder of wonders, they got to where they could do it with hardly any cussing.  Whatever it took to keep from marching.  Riding beat walking any day, especially with the loads the Army expected each and everyone of them to carry.  Those livestock trailers started looking better and better.  In a relatively short while they would grow to be nothing short of the most glorious sight those young men could expect to see.  Those roaring diesel engines were the sound of angels singing.... but that time had yet to arrive.
They were all loaded.  They were loaded in less time than it takes to read about it.  If nothing else, the Army is a people moving machine.  The squashed in trainees left the Fort Polk reception station and were trundled off to South Fort where they would enter into a new way of life.

Curtis,

That reminded me of an old joke:

"How many soldiers can you get into a 2 1/2 ton truck? - All of them!"  

Bill,
.........and maybe have a tad of room left for a few extras.

Curtis, you last post brought back memories of FMF school for me at Camp Lejuene and moving from point A to point B and wonder if cattle felt the same way I did.