Soldiers return from Iraq as the Band of Brothers remains their legacy

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Carol Forsloff - "I got to go see him again," the old man said, "He and I served in the war, and I have to do anything I can to be there for the family."  The Band of Brothers lives again, although one died today.

The Hollies, "He Ain't Heavy; He's My Brother"

Today the news someone said so softly, wiping tears as he walked briskly out a supermarket door to take a plane somewhere, brings reminders of the war
in Iraq winding to its close and the kind of news people often get about the men and women who have died in wars that have a special bond.Those who died, especially those who fought in World War II and the Korean War are aging, leaving, saying goodbye to their band of brothers,
their families and their grateful nation for the service they performed.  Those who march home from Iraq have their band of brothers too.

It was last year a band of brothers recognized Darrel “Shifty” Powers, one of the great heroes of World War II.  He had been featured in “A
Band of Brothers,” and died last in June.His band of brothers said the death of Powers should be told to everyone.  Joe Galloway led the march to do that.The background of Shifty is told by Galloway in his plea for a national memorial. Band of Brothers on HBO, or the History Channel,  has brought viewers to a new appreciation of how men who serve in war never forget each other.  The relationships, set by sacrifice, become distinctive in their lives, as
it is for Galloway and the man he wants remembered.  It wasn't they fought side by side, it was that Galloway understood the sacrifice of
Shifty Powers and the connections men have to each other, especially when they appreciate how brothers by war and by spiritual connection
stand together, even in death.Band of Brothers tells the story of 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 Shifty one time a few years ago at the Philadelphia Airport.  He 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.”

The old man died in June last 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 reminds us how few there are of the men of World War II and how mainstream overlooks its heroes, like Shifty.  Shifty Powers died of
cancer with no parade or major event to mark his passing.

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.

The men are marching home from the war in Iraq.  How many will remember their years of valiant sacrifice, in a war some folks question, but all
feel humbly grateful all the same.  How many more will die before those wars are over, before all wars are over.

How many "Shifty Powers" are there in the Band of Brothers marching home today and how will the relationships be forged between them in the
future like their fathers before.

The men and women coming home from Iraq are seen in television photos, embracing families at a time when jobs are scarce and the nation is
divided.

But one thing where the nation unifies is with its Band of Brothers, always ready, always standing and devoted to serve, like Shifty Powers who lives on in
the memories of his friends and the man whose name I do not know who died today with his friend on a plane to be there by his side..