VETERANS
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“He was a people person. He did not like bullying and he
would not start a fight but he sure would finish it. My dad, he
was a fighter in all kinds of ways when it came to hurtin’ or
anything like that. He was brave. When he was 5 or 6 years
old he was walking on the edge of the wall on the old South
Bridge before it was rebuilt, and he wouldn’t listen to my
grandpa who was trying to get him to come down. And then he
fell down and broke both legs.
“He liked to fish and he loved swimming — at the beach or
in the river, or playing in the canals where he would catch the
alligators.”
Best friend and neighbor Bill Mullins, on an Internet memorial
page, remembered one gator fight. “We once got in the middle
of a canal looking for a 4-foot alligator,” he said. “We both came
up with the gator, just hanging on to him, for dear life.”
Mullins said Copas was fearless even during good-natured
sparring matches. “I knew right away that he was a fighter because
that was our past-time. If we weren’t fighting with pinecones
and tomatoes we were slugging it out with our fists. We
once got into an argument and started rolling and got tangled
up in barbed wire. If I hadn’t shouted “Break,” we would still
be rolling in that barbed wire. We sure had some good times.”
When Copas died at the hands of the enemy in Cambodia,
he was just doing what he always did — being brave and
hating bullies and protecting other people, and in this case,
saving their lives at the cost of his own.
For his gallantry, Copas was posthumously awarded the
Medal of Honor by President Barack Obama on March 18,
along with 23 other veterans. Copas’ daughter accepted the
medal on his behalf.
U.S. ARMY
Shyrell Copas-Herrera accepts the posthumously awarded Medal of Honor for
her dad, Ardie Copas, from President Obama in March 2014. Copas died in
Cambodia when he was just 19 and she was 6 months old.
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