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Decorations register · Notice Nearby

No rights-safe contemporary likeness is on file. The record is the decoration and the writing, not an invented face.

Edward David Shames

1922–2021

Colonel (retired; wartime battlefield commission to Second Lieutenant, Easy Company)

U.S. Army; I Company, then E Company (“Easy Company”), 3rd/2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Normandy, Market Garden, Bastogne / Bulge); later Army Reserve, retired colonel

Documented decorations

Edward David Shames’s Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts are named in the Department of Veterans Affairs’ #VeteranOfTheDay profile of his World War II airborne service. This decorations page records those two types from that VA list. It will not invent a Combat “V” or an oak-leaf tally the VA sentence does not carry.

Born in Norfolk in June 1922, Shames jumped into Normandy with the 506th, earned a battlefield commission near Carentan on his twenty-second birthday, and later fought with Easy Company through Market Garden and the Bulge. The VA account also notes he was among the first of the 101st into Dachau after its liberation. He died 3 December 2021 at ninety-nine, the last surviving officer of Easy Company. The Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts are the published decoration names here. The Band of Brothers book and series are public culture. They are not printed here as medals.

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.