Any time I get a moment to talk to Shig about his life I listen. There are not many men left like Shig. He served in WWII in the 442nt. He was telling me about his time on the front line. Where he spend several months. Out of 187 men he is the only one left. All but nine of his men died in battle.

Shig can’t understand why he is alive at 101. He spent more time on the front line and anyone in his company. See Shig never stopped fighting. Most solders only lasted a few days on the front line, Shig spent over 40 days on the front line watching everyone around him die a horrible death.

He is confused as to why he never got wounded. He would find bullet holes in his clothing at the end of the day, people next to him would get hit by snipers, but not him. He would get chased by machine gun fire as he ran up a hill and those around him would get hit. He was the “black sheep” of his company. He got in a lot of trouble with his commanders, but he never got a scratch from a bullet.

Something watched out for him, an invisible force informed his decisions, he wished he died on the battle field — says that dyeing there would have been easier than being the last one alive.

There are movies about men like Shig but those stories are fiction. He doesn’t have much time left while he relives those battles every day. The universe isn’t random, entropy isn’t evenly distributed. It isn’t fun learning that everything happens for a reason — even when you can’t understand what the reason is.

Categories: Future