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 knew exactly where Normandy was, and I knew 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 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.
“A nation without heroes is nothing.”
Roberto Clemente 3
Pfeifer never could have guessed what a splash his e-mail would make. About four or five days later, he started seeing his own e-mail again. The e-mail was being forwarded. And forwarded. And forwarded. The e-mail had taken on a life of its own. It went viral, being forwarded again and again all over the world. No one knew exactly how many times it got forwarded, but estimates range from the hundreds of thousands to the millions.
For a while, a guessing game ensued. People wanted to know who had written the e-mail. Pfeifer hadn’t signed his name. Apparently, someone forwarded it to retired Major General Chuck Yeager, who forwarded it on. For a while, people attributed the e-mail to him.
Reporters from Fox News were first to call Pfeifer. They noted that his name was encrypted far back in the e-mail, and they wanted to know if Pfeifer knew anything about who had written it or how Pfeifer fit into the whole thing. At the time, the reporters suspected the author of the e-mail was astronaut John Glenn, Pfeifer said.
The Army Times and the Navy Times picked up the story, and the e-mail started to show up in military circles. Various redactions and corrections of it appeared—some versions of it contained a lot more anger toward Michael Jackson, which was never what Pfeifer intended, he said.
The e-mail began to show up as the subject matter on local television shows around the country. It was the subject of multiple talk radio shows. News began to trickle out that an obscure, former Dow Jones employee was the author, and Pfeifer began to get e-mails from all over the world. The farthest away was from someone in the Kamchatka Peninsula, in the Russian Far East. The English was not very good and the name was Russian, so Pfeifer assumed it wasn’t a U.S. serviceman stationed over there. The e-mail said simply, “Hey, good for you for recognizing Mr. Powers.”
NBC News picked up the story, and national anchorman Brian Williams eulogized Shifty Powers on the evening news, although they initially attributed the e-mail’s authorship to Chuck Yeager. NBC News is the most-watched major network news in America, averaging as many as ten million viewers each night. 4 The soft-spoken machinist from Clinchco was now a household name.
The watchdog website Snopes.com picked up the story and initially classified the idea of meeting Shifty in the airport and the Yeager authorship as “probable but undocumented.” Pfeifer e-mailed them to say that the story of meeting Shifty was true, and that he was the author. Snopes representatives didn’t do anything to change their classification for some time, Pfeifer said. But then a variety of other sites started posting that Pfeifer was the author. Finally Chuck Yeager’s people came out with an official statement, something along the lines of “While we agree with the content of the e-mail, he didn’t write it,” Pfeifer said. Snopes confirmed the authorship,5 and representatives for NBC News wrote an article clarifying it also.6
The constant forwarding of the e-mail, as well as the national news coverage, created a larger grassroots effort to honor Shifty. More sites and messages promoting a day of honor started appearing all over the Internet. Word was spread on a variety of cities’ Craigslist message boards. On July 20, 2009, an unofficial day of memory and honor in Shifty Powers’s name was held. No fewer than nine memorial pages on Facebook carried the tribute. The largest garnered more than five thousand fans.7 Messages flooded the boards.
Pfeifer was happy when he saw this. The point, Pfeifer said, was never that the e-mail itself would gain a lot of attention. It was always that Shifty would receive the honor due him.
At the sixty-third annual Easy Company reunion, held October 29 to 31, 2009, in Columbus, Ohio, Herb Suerth, Jr., president of the Men of Easy Company Association, held a moment of silence for Shifty Powers, as well as for Easy Company members Forrest Guth and Jack Foley, who had also died that year. About one hundred and fifty people attended the reunion, including extended family and friends of Easy Company members, and eight remaining veterans, including Shifty’s good friend Earl McClung. An open mic time was held, and a variety of stories, both humorous and poignant, about Shifty were told.
Margo Johnson, Shifty’s daughter, sent a letter to the reunion. Margo wanted to attend in person, but the thought of going to the reunion without her daddy felt too overwhelming; her grief was still too raw, she said. Margo’s letter was read from the podium at the evening banquet by Carrie Smith, Shifty’s great-niece. The letter said in part:On behalf of my family and myself we wish to thank you for your generous expressions of sympathy. It is a comfort and honor beyond measure for me to count myself a member of the Easy Company family. Before the book, before the miniseries, before all the accolades, you were a breed apart, a close-knit family that has only grown closer through these many years.
. . . We strive to be brave as Daddy was brave, we strive to be strong as he was strong, and we strive to live our lives as he lived his—with quiet dignity and the determination that no matter what trouble may come, we will be strong enough to endure. “Shifty” would expect nothing less.
And the legacy of Shifty Powers continues.
UNDERSTANDING SHIFTY POWERS’S POSITION IN EASY COMPANY, 506TH PIR, 101ST AIRBORNE
Shifty started the war as a private and eventually became a sergeant. As a sergeant, Shifty led a squad in the Third Platoon of Easy Company. This was a low position on the front lines of the battle, nothing glamorous or glorious here. But NCOs like Shifty are considered the backbone of the military. They are men who get the job done.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND SOURCES
In the fall of 2009, the last few remaining veterans from Easy Company, 506th Pa
rachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, held a reunion in Columbus, Ohio. I attended the reunion, and we held a book signing at a nearby bookstore with the veterans who wanted to participate. It was a good time, many of them told me later. Some of their wives told me that their husbands had been looking forward to this event for months. Shifty Powers had died a few months earlier and he was fondly talked about and remembered often during the weekend.
Coming home from the reunion, I remember thinking that my time with the Band of Brothers was nearly finished. I had authored two books and coauthored another on the subject, and was not seeking to do another book about the men. But a few weeks after the reunion, I received a short e-mail that said simply: “Hi Marcus, I’m Sandy, Shifty’s daughter-in-law. My husband, Wayne, is very interested in speaking to you regarding a project involving his father. Could you please give him a call?”
I phoned Wayne Powers the next day and we spoke for some time. He described how there were still stories to tell about the Band of Brothers. His father had been so loved by so many, and the outpouring of expressions of gratitude since his death had been overwhelming. The family wanted to talk from their hearts about the man they knew and loved so well. Would I be interested in writing a book about Shifty Powers?
Yes, I was very interested, but I was also wary. The book business had suffered a sharp downturn in 2008 and 2009, and publishers weren’t offering contracts for anything except “the surest things.” My agent, Greg Johnson of the WordServe Literary Group, and I had recently pitched two other veterans’ memoirs, and they had both been rejected. I e-mailed Greg and described the project about Shifty Powers. He was also initially wary, as it usually takes quite a bit of work even to prepare a full proposal package to publishers, but he said he’d mull the idea around a few days.
Now, Greg is a fairly cut-and-dried type of businessman. He’s not one given to hearing voices or seeing visions. But early the very next morning, Greg e-mailed me back. “Okay, I kept having dreams about Shifty Powers last night,” Greg wrote. “I can’t get him out of my mind. The more I think about this, the more I think this is something that we ought to pursue.”
We prepared a proposal document and sent it to acquiring editor Natalee Rosenstein at the Berkley Publishing Group, and she offered us a contract immediately. The folks at Berkley are pure professionals, straight-shooting and courteous, and they’ve always given us honest feedback if they believe a book project will find success or not. We’ve worked with them on several projects now, and many thanks are given to Ms. Rosenstein, Michelle Vega, Caitlin Mulrooney-Lyski, and the rest of the publisher’s team. Within a few weeks, I flew to Clinchco, Virginia, to visit the family of Shifty Powers. I wanted to see firsthand the lay of the land and understand more what made this small mining community so special. Shifty’s daughter, Margo, and her husband, Seldon Johnson, picked me up at the closest airport, in Bristol, Tennessee, which is just across the line from Virginia. It was nearly midnight their time when they picked me up, yet they took me to a hotel and we sat in their car in the dark with the snow falling outside, and we talked for more than an hour, reminiscing about their dad. I’d say we enjoyed an immediate connection.
The next day we drove out to Clinchco. The town is so small there is no hotel, so I stayed in a spare room at the Ralph Stanley Museum and Traditional Mountain Music Center in Clintwood. The next few days were filled with interviews with the Powers family and trips to see various parts of the land. Wayne drove me in Shifty’s jeep up to Frying Pan, where, once you near the top, you can look out and see ridge after ridge, and they’re all actually blue.
The Powers family was truly gracious. They went out of their way to make me feel welcome and provide all the information, documents, and photographs needed. Many thanks to Shifty’s widow, Dorothy Powers; Wayne and Sandra Powers; Margo and Seldon Johnson; Clay and Kayla Powers; Dove Powers; Jake and Dawnyale Johnson; Luke and Amanda Johnson; Caden Powers; and Cooper Powers. I also spoke on the phone with Shifty’s last remaining sibling, Gaynell Sykes, who lives several hours away in Roanoke.
While in Clinchco, I spoke with friends and acquaintances of Shifty’s, including Shanghai Nickles, Teresa Mullins from the Dickenson Star newspaper, Cody Mullins, Carol Robinette, and Johnny Sykes. Thanks for all the stories they shared, and thanks go to longtime family friend Richard Copenhaven, whom I spoke with later.
When I got back home, I conducted more interviews while researching the book. Many thanks go to the many members of Easy Company who contributed stories for this book, including Earl McClung, Buck Taylor, Paul Rogers, Don Malarkey, Buck Compton, Ed Tipper, Joe Lesniewski, Herb Suerth, Jr., Bill Guarnere, Babe Heffron, and Ed Shames. Some men I talked to directly, some men spoke about Shifty on various recordings I listened to. Thanks are due to Carlton and Sandra Lowry, the family of Popeye Wynn, who sent me pictures as well as correspondences that took place between Popeye and Shifty.
Peter Youngblood Hills was a wonder to talk to and had much to contribute regarding the mannerisms and gestures of Shifty. Thanks also go to Mark Pfeifer for telling me in detail the story of his amazing e-mail.
Thanks go to the many people and companies who faithfully preserved Shifty’s words and thoughts over the years, including the Makos family and Valor Studios; the Men of Easy Company Association; the Army & Navy Club; Scott Vaughn and Richard Clark from The Groove 1320 radio show, WMSR Manchester; Nick Roylance and Alex Hedley with Genesis Productions; Cowen/ Richter Productions (the original HBO tapes); the Dickenson County Historical Society; and the students and faculty at Southwest Virginia Community College, the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, and Mountain Empire Community College at Big Stone Gap, Virginia. Gratitude is expressed to the Powers family for allowing me access to their archives.
Thanks are extended to the authors and publishers of the many books surrounding Easy Company, which I used as source material, including Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose, Parachute Infantry by David Kenyon Webster, Beyond Band of Brothers by Major Richard Winters and Colonel Cole Kingseed, Biggest Brother by Larry Alexander, Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends by S/Sgt. Bill Guarnere and P.F.C. Babe Heffron with Robyn Post, Call of Duty by Lt. Buck Compton with Marcus Brotherton, Easy Company Soldier by Sgt. Don Malarkey with Bob Welch, From Toccoa to the Eagle’s Nest by Dalton Einhorn, and In the Footsteps of the Band of Brothers by Larry Alexander. (Note: for people looking to complete a library about the Band of Brothers, there are two other coffee table–style photo books, quite rare, which I didn’t consult for this project—The Way We Were by Forrest Guth and Michael de Trez and Easy Company by Genesis Publications.) Many thanks also go to the veterans who contributed to We Who Are Alive and Remain, and the families and friends of the veterans who contributed to A Company of Heroes.
Currahee!, the scrapbook compiled by Hank DiCarlo and Alan Westphal and published by the 506th PIR in 1945, was also invaluable. Gary and Marci Carson loaned me their copy, most generous of them, as it is an extremely rare book.
I am indebted to the families of Burton “Pat” Christenson, Mike Ranney, Gordon Carson, Carwood Lipton, and Robert Van Klinken for allowing me to view their unpublished journals and notes while researching A Company of Heroes. These journals and notes were consulted for this book as well.
Thanks go to the greater community that surrounds Easy Company, people who work to preserve and maintain documents, photographs, files, memorabilia, and stories, and those who champion veterans’ tributes and remembrances, including Jake Powers, Rich Riley, Steph Leenhowers, Chris Langlois and everybody from the Easy Company family forum, Steve Toye, Joe “Mooch” Muccia, Peter van de Wal in Holland, Paul Woodage from www.battlebus.fr, Vance Day, George Luz, Jr., and Colonel Susan Luz, Robyn Post, Ian Gardner, Larry Alexander, Tony Coulter, Linda Cautaert from www.majordickwinters.com, Don Burgett, Captain Dale Dye, Tracy Compton, Syndee Compton, Rob Stark, Tim Gray Media Productions, Curt and Shonda Schilling, Conan O’Brien, James Madio, Donnie Wahlberg, Fl
int Whitlock and World War II Quarterly, Barbara Embree Webster, Renay Fredette from Art-4Causes, and the incomparable C. Susan Finn.
Continual thanks go to Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, the Playtone Company, and Merav Brooks and everyone at HBO.
Newspaper journalists Dorothy Brotherton and H. C. Jones carefully read each chapter and offered valuable suggestions along the way.
I am ever grateful to my wife, Mary Margaret Brotherton, for her strong support in this project and her love always.
Final thanks go to the international community of fans who continue to preserve the legacy of the Band of Brothers and hold closely what it means to live in freedom.
Regarding sources used, and where certain stories came from, I thought it might be interesting to provide a short section at the back of this book, sort of like a DVD’s commentary. Forgive me for not providing footnotes, but I thought they’d only slow down the reading experience through the actual book.
Of course, most of the stories in this book came from Shifty directly. Yet here are some chapter-by-chapter explanations of where a few of the other stories came from.
Chapter 1
Shifty told his son-in-law, Seldon Johnson, that he had killed the specific number of eight men during the war. The specific line Seldon remembers was, “I know I killed eight men. It could have been more, but I don’t know for sure. People think they know what killing’s like, but they don’t.” Other than that occasion, Shifty seldom answered that question straight out if asked. If he was talking to adults, he’d brush it off, if to children, he’d get very elusive in his answer, almost white lie-style.
Shifty’s well-known statements about the German soldiers perhaps being just like him were spoken directly by Shifty and shown in the vignettes feature of episode 10 of the miniseries. Interestingly, in transcripts of the full interview with HBO, Shifty added the line “He might have been a basketball player, you never know,” which was edited out of the series.
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