Charles Shay, D-Day Native American veteran, passes away

[ad_1] PARIS (AP) — Charles Shay, a decorated Native American veteran who was a 19-year-old U.S. Military medic when he landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day and helped save lives, died on Wednesday. He was 101.

Shay died at his dwelling in Bretteville-L’Orgueilleuse in France’s Normandy area, his longtime buddy and carer Marie-Pascale Legrand mentioned.

Shay, of the Penobscot tribe and from Indian Island within the U.S. state of Maine, was awarded the Silver Star for repeatedly plunging into the ocean and carrying critically wounded troopers to relative security, saving them from drowning. He additionally acquired France’s highest award, the Legion of Honor, in 2007.

Shay had been residing in France since 2018, not removed from the shores of Normandy the place almost 160,000 troops from Britain, the U.S., Canada and different nations landed on D-Day on June 6, 1944. The Battle of Normandy hastened Germany’s defeat, which got here lower than a 12 months later.

“He handed away peacefully surrounded by his family members,” Legrand informed The Related Press.

The Charles Shay Memorial group, which honors the reminiscence of about 500 Native People who landed on the Normandy seashores, mentioned in a press release posted on Fb that “our hearts are deeply saddened as we share that our beloved Charles Norman Shay … has returned dwelling to the Creator and the Spirit World.”

“He was an extremely loving father, grandfather, father-in-law, and uncle, a hero to many, and an total wonderful human being,” the assertion mentioned. “Charles leaves a legacy of affection, service, braveness, spirit, obligation and household that continues to shine brightly.”

Prepared to offer his life On D-Day, 4,414 Allied troops misplaced their lives, 2,501 of them People. Greater than 5,000 have been wounded. On the German facet, a number of thousand have been killed or wounded.

Shay survived.

“I suppose I used to be ready to offer my life if I needed to. Luckily, I didn't should,” Shay mentioned in a 2024 interview with The Related Press.

“I had been given a job, and the way in which I checked out it, it was as much as me to finish my job,” he recalled. “I didn't have time to fret about my scenario of being there and maybe dropping my life. There was no time for this.”

On that evening, exhausted, he ultimately fell asleep in a grove above the seashore.

“Once I awakened within the morning. It was like I used to be sleeping in a graveyard as a result of there have been lifeless People and Germans surrounding me,” he recalled. “I stayed there for not very lengthy and I continued on my approach.”

Shay then pursued his mission in Normandy for a number of weeks, rescuing these wounded, earlier than heading with American troops to jap France and Germany, the place he was taken prisoner in March 1945 and liberated a number of weeks later.

Spreading a message of peace After World Struggle II, Shay reenlisted within the navy as a result of the scenario of Native People in his dwelling state of Maine was too precarious resulting from poverty and discrimination.

Maine wouldn't permit people residing on Native American reservations to vote till 1954.

Shay continued to witness historical past — returning to fight as a medic throughout the Korean Struggle, taking part in U.S. nuclear testing within the Marshall Islands and later working on the Worldwide Atomic Power Company in Vienna, Austria.

For over 60 years, he didn't speak about his WWII expertise.

However he started attending D-Day commemorations in 2007 and in recent times, he has seized many events to give his powerful testimony and unfold a message of peace.

Through the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2021, Shay’s lone presence marked commemoration ceremonies as journey restrictions prevented different veterans or households of fallen troopers from the U.S., Britain and different allied international locations from making the journey to France

Unhappiness at seeing conflict again in Europe For years, Shay used to carry out a sage-burning ceremony, in homage to those that died, on a bluff overlooking Omaha Seaside, the place the monument bearing his identify now stands.

On June 6, 2022, he handed over the remembrance process to a different Native American, Julia Kelly, a Gulf Struggle veteran from the Crow tribe. That was simply over three months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in what was to turn out to be the worst conflict on the continent since 1945

Shay then expressed his unhappiness at seeing conflict again on the continent.

“Ukraine is a really unhappy scenario. I really feel sorry for the individuals there and I don’t know why this conflict needed to come,” he mentioned. “In 1944, I landed on these seashores and we thought we’d convey peace to the world. However it’s not doable.”

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