<P> Gordon had served with Easy Company as a machine gunner . He jumped into Normandy in the early morning hours of 6 June 1944 and landed on a farm . He found other unit members shortly after . One week later, on 13 June, he was wounded in the arm and shoulder at Carentan, France . In the hospital, different groups of military upper brass visited the wounded soldiers and pinned Purple Hearts on the men's pillows . Gordon received his, but he unpinned and hid it, so when the next group came, they would give him another Purple Heart . After a while, Gordon had several medals . Gordon spent 8 weeks in the hospital and returned to Easy Company . Darrell "Shifty" Powers recalled one time Gordon gave his last cigarette to Talbert, but charged him a dime for a match . When Gordon found out that Talbert was disqualified from receiving Purple Heart for a wound received when Tab was mistakenly bayoneted by another Easy Company trooper, he put together a makeshift ceremony with Paul Rogers and gave Talbert one of his extra Purple Hearts . They also wrote the poem The Night of the Bayonet for the incident . </P> <P> In September 1944, he jumped in the failed mission of Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands . Smokey also fought in Bastogne, Belgium in December 1944 . Major Richard D. Winters remembered seeing Gordon sitting on the edge of his foxhole behind his light machine gun, his head wrapped in a large towel with his helmet on top . Winters did not recognize Gordon at first, and was struck knowing that it was him . He thought "Damn! Gordon's matured! He's a man!" On Christmas Eve, Gordon was shot by a German sniper, with the bullet penetrating one shoulder, traveling through his body and exiting the shoulder on the other side, which paralyzed him . He was evacuated from the front lines on 27 December when Patton's Third Army penetrated the German lines and marched into Bastogne . In the process of recovery, Gordon was hospitalized for six months . </P> <P> In spring 1945, Gordon was sent back to the States and to Lawson General Hospital . One day when he was recuperating, a doctor named Dr. Stadium turned to the nurse and said, "Keep an eye on this one, he's goldbricking ." Gordon was infuriated, and only later he realized that the doctor was trying to rile him up to help reconnect nerves and keep a fighting spirit in him . He remained in touch with Dr. Stadium for years after the war . The Army decided not to release Gordon, although he was improving, possibly because they might have to pay Gordon for a full disability if they released him at that point . Gordon was discharged from the Army with a 90% disability after his father threatened to "drive him down to the US Capitol Building, march him down onto the Senate floor, strip him down to his skivvies and let someone besides the Army make a determination ." </P> <P> Gordon eventually fully regained all bodily movements but would suffer from severe back pain for the remainder of his life . People who did not know of his condition would always give him big hugs and pats on the back and knowledgeable ones could always tell it caused him extreme pain but he would never show the person any sign that it bothered him at all . </P>

What happened to smokey in band of brothers