The Last of the Bedford Boys- R.I.P

Ray Nance is dead at age 94.
On June 6, 1944, Bedford, Virginia sent thirty of its young men against Hitler's Army at Normandy. 20 of these young men died on the sand and the telegraph machine in Bedford's drugstore clicked its mournful news all day and into the night. There was hardly a family in this small Virginia town untouched.
While his childhood friends were being slaughtered, Ray Nance struggled through the sand, shot twice in the foot and once through the hand.
For the dubious distinction of having suffered the greatest per capita loss of any American town, Bedford was chosen as the site of the WWII Normandy Memorial. The last of the Bedford boys, Ray Nance, was taken there by hearse on the way to his final rest, having never gotten past his "survivor's guilt". Stand easy, Soldier. We'll take it from here....

What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted!
Thrice is he armed that has his quarrel just,
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted