28. A Hero Story With a Plot Twist
For decades, the United States Air Force, and its Army Air Corps and Army Air Forces predecessors, used the cartoon character “Airman Snuffy” for training purposes. Airman Snuffy’s actions often illustrate what a good airman should not do. In World War II, the real-life Airman Snuffy was an entitled trust fund brat, often berated and punished by superiors for being a jackass and having his head stuck up his rear. Then, on his first combat mission, he earned a Medal of Honor.
In typical hero stories, the heroes are mostly – but not always – nice and likeable. Few illustrate the “not always” a bit better than Maynard Harrison Smith. An often insufferable jerk and sometimes repellent person, he nonetheless deservedly earned America’s highest award for valor in combat. Smith was born in 1911 in the small Michigan town of Caro. In typical hero stories, this would be a segue into how he grew up with American small-town values, community, church, Boy Scouts, learned discipline, responsibility, and the value of honest hard work in the family’s workshop or a nearby farm. This is not a typical hero’s story, but one with multiple plot twists.