21. It Did Not Take Long for This Unexpected Hero to Go Back to Being a Disliked Jerk
Finally, the outfit’s operations officer recommended that Smith be demoted to private for an “insufferable” attitude and poor performance. The hero was often AWOL, and displayed “no responsibility to his duties, or to his officers and fellow NCOs“, and it took repeated warnings and reprimands to get any work out of him. The USAAF agreed, and on December 17th, 1944, Snuffy Smith’s tale witnessed another plot twist when he was busted down to private. It was a demotion that he angrily described as “the rotten deal that lousy outfit gave me“. A medical board grounded him that same day, and he was sent back to America soon thereafter.
Back in Michigan, Smith was still a hero. His hometown welcomed him back with a parade that featured the state’s governor, Harry Kelly, and gifted him a pricey gold wristwatch. He got his discharge papers soon afterward, and settled in Washington, DC, where he worked for the IRS. He was bitter about his time in uniform, which he told a friend “was just so much time of my life wasted“. When the Pentagon tried to set up some PR interviews, Smith made sure that they wouldn’t call again “when I [got] through putting them in their proper place“.