On the monthly anniversary of the passing of WWII hero Darrell Shifty Powers, who was in all of the Band of Brothers episodes portrayed by Peter Youngblood Hills, I received an email that looked like one of those viral scams, but the email in fact is legitimate in content. 

"I could hear bullets and shrapnel hitting the plane. As I jumped out the door, I could see that the left motor was on fire." – Darrell Shifty Powers talking about jumping over Normandy, France, on D-Day.

Many, many of you have sent me notice that Shifty Powers of the heroic Easy Company, 2-506th PIR, 101st Airborne Division, died on June 17th.  I had no idea that he had passed on.  I have written here a lot about Easy Company and even have an autographed photo (Bill Guarnere) on my desk of the jump into Holland (Market Garden).

If you use GoogleNews (any combo of Darrell and/or Shifty Powers), there are less then ten notices of his death.  There are less than four articles about his passing on from "old media" news agencies.

Quite frankly, this is an affront to a genuinely good man.  Shifty Powers received two Bronze Stars and a CIB and fought in every campaign that Easy Company was in.  He was severely injured on his way home in a truck accident (the irony is that the men of Easy rigged the lottery to go home so Shifty would be first, but he ended up being one of the last to get home after an extensive hospitalization).

This email has gone viral about Shifty:

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 was, 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 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 24×7 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.

"A nation without heroes is nothing." – Roberto Clemente
Thank you,
Doug Corrigan
PC / Business Process & Systems Management
Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc.
Phone: xxx-xxx-xxxx
Fax: xxx-xxx-xxxx
email: doug.corrigan@xxxxxxxxx

Authors Note on the topic of Darrell ‘Shifty’ Powers

I can not speak to whether or not the authenticity of the author is real yet, but the sentiment in the email is valid.  I have removed the authors phone and email addresses from this post, but did want to help increase the spread of this particular message.  We joke here at ViralGrapeVine about just about anything, and usually the wrong things at that. We have the luxury of doing that because veterans like Darrell helped secure our freedoms.  I am a veteran myself of the first Gulf War but my own story is of almost insignificant consequence compared to Darrell Powers with one small exception.

Just because a hero succeeds or survives or accomplishes something so great, it doesn’t mean the rest of us should stop trying.  I joined the service during the build up to the Persian Gulf War.  I was not drafted, did not need to join or anything like that.  I’m not a warmonger nor do I have many romantic notions about war or the military.  Members of my family have fought in almost every war that our country has been involved in since before the country was a country.  Yet, there was no family call for me to join, no wrong headed pursuit of family honor or anything.  In fact, many, possibly a majority of the veterans I spoke with in my family before I joined counseled me NOT to join the military.  I was dumb and lucky and things worked out fine for me. 

I also did not shy away from doing something (the dumb part) but I did it knowing the risks, knowing the potential consequences of my actions and more, some might equate that with courage.  My point is that even as I write this article on a site that is mostly egregiously poor satire, I do that to help protect the boundaries of my speech, trying to keep it free, and usually only just barely jogging myself out of writers block so that I may write somewhere else.

We can celebrate Darrell ‘Shifty’ Powers in a national memorial, but putting his statue up on a physical pedestal is not really what this is about.  So if you pass on this email, if you have passed it on already or if you do anything to help promote this effort, remember that your efforts will be largely wasted if you personally are not doing something, anything everyday to also protect our freedoms.  You can worship a hero all you like, but if you don’t make even small heroic steps yourself, then your worship of said hero is hollow & baseless. 

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