Harry Nivens is a hero in its most classic and robust sense. He fought in the U.S. Army at the age of 19 and served in a critical role during World War II as a parachuting soldier in the airborne division. On Sept. 30, Mr. Nivens celebrated his 100 years of life, each filled with courage and loss and honor, right here in Lake Nona.

This Somerby Senior Living resident had a big, great birthday party and commemorated all he has experienced as well as all he has done for our country. One hundred years is a very long time to fill your life with joy and purpose, and Mr. Nivens has each in abundance.

Nivens was given a chance at life after his time in the Army, seeing all he’d seen and being where he’d been. Some of his very best friends were not so lucky, and he honors their memory by sharing their stories with their remaining families. They each served in the Army as paratroopers and grew very close. His dear friends, Emmitt Nix and Neil Owens, lost their lives fighting for our country, but Nivens makes a point to preserve their memory.

Nivens wore his Army uniform with pride and boasted it well. His mindset was not one of fear or a need to escape but a patriotic spirit that can’t help but humble you.

After time spent in Normandy during one of the most bloody and tumultuous times ever, performing his duties as a paratrooper and American through and through, Nivens returned home. He was welcomed home and given a Purple Heart after being wounded during his service, but he was hesitant to be called a hero there.

Nivens resumed his life and devoted much of it to reaching out to the families of soldiers who never returned home, to share their stories and teach them about the kinds of people their relatives were. He knows that the most they would have received as notification would have been a telegram, and nobody deserves to be informed of a loved one’s passing so impersonally. He honors them by sharing who they were with the next generation.

In addition to verbally telling the tales of his fellow soldiers, Nivens named his son after his two best friends, Emmitt Theodore Nix and Cornelius Owens. Theodore Neil Owens lives on to celebrate his father and the honor in which his name was born.

After a century of making a life for himself, it is only proper that he celebrated in a big way, with Somerby Senior Living hosting a party for this gentleman at the end of September. Happy birthday to a courageous and selfless man, Harry Nivens!