97 is only part of his story. In 1942, he was on Guadalcanal, driving a captured Japanese dozer finishing Fighter One landing strip when a Marine captain came around grabbing every man he could find. Uncle grabbed an 03-A3 Springfield and a trenching shovel and tagged along. To Bloody Ridge with the Raiders, where he got his cheek ripped open with a bayonet while he killed the man wielding it with the trenching shovel. I don't know what all else he did that day, because he still won't talk about it, but it won him the DSC, a Purple Heart, and the Silver Star. Not bad for a son of a west Alabama dirt farmer who never raised his voice in anger in my memory, and can still straight arm a 12 pound sledge hammer. My hero.