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Plymouth soldier remembered as a hero

E-mail|Link|Comments () November 11, 2009 08:39 AM

By Globe Staff

Dozens of people are expressing their condolences this morning on a Facebook page set up in memory of 21-year-old Benjamin Sherman, an Army paratrooper from Plymouth whose body was found in Afghanistan Tuesday.

Benjamin Sherman

Sherman, who was assigned to the Fourth Brigade Combat Team of the 82d Airborne Division, and a fellow soldier disappeared Nov. 4 when they went to retrieve supplies dropped into a river in western Afghanistan, the Globe reports today.

Sherman may have tried to help his struggling comrade when both got caught up in the current, the military told his family.

"Thank you for bravely serving your country and giving your life to protect us. Ben is a true hero!" one poster wrote.

"You will never be forgotten," wrote another.

"My brother is the type of man whose main values are honor, respect and standing up for what you believe in. Yet more importantly he was all about brotherhood. He would consider every single soldier, friend or even a stranger his brother," Meredith Sherman, his sister, said Tuesday in a statement.

"I know that day he jumped into the river to try to save his comrade was not because he didn’t just see another soldier in the water, he saw his brother. He didn’t jump in because he was trained to, but because that’s what his heart told him to do. There is not a doubt in my mind he would do the same for each and every single individual not only in the United States but anywhere in the world," she said.