1SG (R) Bill Shaw

1SG (R) Bill Shaw sat down with me for Heroes Live.

Born 1955. Niceville, Florida. Yes it is a nice place. Woods all around him. Cowboys and Indians. BB guns. Out at daylight. Home after dark.

He has been working since he was thirteen. Scatter brick around houses. A quarter an hour. After school he labored for a brickmason. After dark he ground heads and rebuilt starters at the auto parts store until 9:30. Then school again. He likes staying busy. He says it is in his DNA.

He took the ASVAB for the Air Force. Eglin was right there. They wanted him in aviation electronics. Six-month wait. He knew if he did not leave then he would not leave. The Air Force guy walked him down the hall. The Army recruiter's eyes got big. Bill told him Fort Campbell. 101st Airborne. He got it. Basic on Tank Hill at Jackson. 16 Romeo AIT in El Paso. Two weeks home. He got married. Honeymoon was the drive to Kentucky. They had taken the 101st off jump status. He was disappointed. He still liked the unit.

Needs of the Army put him on levy for Germany. Smartass corporal. He fought it. Thirteen months there. They made him a specialist on the way over. He pinned E5 at three years and reenlisted right back to Campbell. Made E6. Volunteered for drill sergeant school. One hundred and four modules. Cameras and mics on the third try. Two no-gos. He made it. Charlie 41 on the hill in El Paso. A lot of 82nd troopers came through that battery.

He had a 6-foot-5 private on his knees so he could look him in the eye. The battalion commander came around the corner. They sent him to the Military Adjustment Unit. Five drills. Two hundred eighty-four bodies. Most they ever had at once was three. Seven days. Keep them or discharge them. PT and military justice. Then Third Battalion, Fourth Air Defense. He said that is where he learned what real professionalism was. Jeff Jordan knew that MAU too. Bravo battery when Bill got there.

He wanted to be a command sergeant major. His body was done. Parents aging. His wife's mother aging. Twenty years. He had to fight to retire off a three-year assignment. Then he was a Florida fire marshal for almost twenty more. State buildings. Prisons. Attention to detail from jump school and drill sergeant school. He kept looking for familiar faces. Never saw any.

January 2012 they plated and screwed his neck. Bone in the spinal cord. One leg gone. The other numb. Old jump injuries. May 2012 they did the lower back. Two years of therapy. He walks. He gets on the tractor. He fishes. Little piece of ground near Century and Flomaton. Everybody knows Atmore. The casinos. He retired that civilian job in 2013. Lives in Valparaiso now. Next door to Niceville.

I was the young soldier in the other platoon in the early nineties. Staff duty. Picking his brain. Frank Calderon. C.J. Stevens. Bill was one of the good ones. That is why we hit record. Get the story on tape before we are too old or too sick to tell it.