By MELANIE POOLE / Special to the Reporter

The Veteran of the Week is sponsored by the National Veterans Shrine and Register of Honor at the American Village — honoring America’s veterans and telling the stories of their service and sacrifice for the cause of liberty.

“The American Village is pleased to join the Shelby County Reporter in recognizing Corporal Jack Pritchett as Veteran of the Week,” American Village founder and CEO Tom Walker said. “He is representative of the hundreds of thousands of Alabamians who have risked it all for the sake of our country and its freedom. To all veterans we owe a debt we can never fully repay.”

Visit the website, Veteransregisterofhonor.com, today and add your loved ones to the Register of Honor. Help us honor, recognize, respect and remember our country’s veterans.

Here are highlights about this week’s Veteran of the Week:

Jack Pritchett was born in 1923 and grew up near Guntersville, AL. As a high school senior he received his draft notice in the fall of 1942. Jack left for duty that Christmas. Assigned to the 737th tank battalion he traveled by troop train to Ft. Lewis, Washington for Army basic training. While there he was assigned as a tank retriever driver. After a year of training the battalion sailed from Boston Feb. 12, 1944 in route to England. The Omaha Beach landing on July 10, 1944 started the long trek across Europe as the men of the 737th fought the German forces through France, Germany and Luxembourg. The tank battalion would eventually become known as “Patton’s Spearheaders”. After the war Jack went on to finish high school and attended college. He worked for the engineering division of NASA in Huntsville, AL retiring after 32 years. Jack was one of four living members of the 737th tank battalion who attended the 70th reunion of “Patton’s Spearheaders” in June 2017.