Military Memorial

Raised in Campobello, South Carolina, Shields attended Wofford and participated in the ROTC program. He graduated with a degree in chemistry, and he worked in the family business, Water Conditioning Inc. A devoted Christian, Shields was an active member of New Prospect Baptist Church; he sang in the choir and joined a mission trip to teach soccer to inner-city children in Missouri. He became a pilot and was stationed in Columbia. Shields shared a passion for flying with his father and twin brother, Philip, who also flies in the South Carolina National Guard. 'When you're flying, you see the world in a different perspective,' Shields told a newspaper in 1997, when he was 18 years old. He shared a room with Philip at Wofford, and the pair stayed up late talking about girls, classes and goals. 'He liked to dream,' his brother said. 'People wait too late to think of them as heroes. They were heroes when they left. There are a lot more out there.' Shields died in a helicopter collision in Mosul, Iraq. The stretch of Highway 11 between I-26 and Highway 9 is dedicated to Shields, who was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star.