Decorations register · Notice Nearby
No rights-safe contemporary likeness is on file. The record is the decoration and the writing, not an invented face.
Charles Norman Shay
1924–2025
Master Sergeant (VA profile address); wartime combat medic, Private on D-Day
WWII: combat medic, Company F, 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division (Omaha Beach and European campaigns); Korea: 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division
Documented decorations
Bronze Star Medal
multiple awards with Combat “V” (Army 1st Infantry Division account of Korean War service)
U.S. Army 1st Infantry Division article states multiple Bronze Star Medals with the “V” device for treating and evacuating wounded in Korea. VA #VeteranOfTheDay (2017) also names a Bronze Star. Do not invent an exact oak-leaf count on this page without a matching official tally.
Public sources
Silver Star
Named by U.S. Army 1st Infantry Division for Omaha Beach actions; also named in VA #VeteranOfTheDay (2017).
Public sources
Charles Norman Shay’s Silver Star and Bronze Star Medals are named in U.S. Army and Veterans Affairs accounts of his service. The 1st Infantry Division’s December 3, 2025 remembrance states that his actions on Omaha Beach earned him the Silver Star, and that courage treating and evacuating wounded with the 7th Infantry in Korea resulted in multiple Bronze Star Medals with the Combat “V” device. The VA #VeteranOfTheDay profile likewise names a Silver Star and Bronze Star. This decorations page records those two types from those sources.
This page will not invent a Purple Heart. The Army and VA sources checked for this pack name the Silver Star and Bronze Star Medal; they do not, in the pages opened here, list a Purple Heart by that name. Wound language alone is not enough for this register.
A French Légion d’honneur and later remembrance work on the Normandy coast are public honor. They are not U.S. decorations on this medal row. He is not yet on a World War II war-roll essay. Penobscot Nation heritage is identity, not a badge.
This name is not yet on a war-roll essay. The decorations above are the documented public record this register will stand on until that essay is written.
A publisher register — not a verification
This decorations register is publisher-curated from public records — Medal of Honor Society citations, published general orders, and official Army, Navy, and Marine Corps biographies. It is not a verified-veteran product. Notice Nearby does not certify service and does not issue badges.
A paid or unpaid memorial does not enroll anyone here. Checkout, VET50, and a family’s mention of service on an obituary are not applications to this list. We add a name only when a public official source names the decoration.
Claiming a decoration that was not awarded is stolen valor. It is a disrespect to those who earned the medal and, in some cases, a federal crime. This register will not invent an award to fill a page.
These pages are a historical register. They are not Legal Publication, not a newspaper notice, and not proof that a statute was satisfied.