Some Rocks Last Longer Than Others

I've been thinking about Sgt. Rock again recently, specifically, Robert Kanigher's assertion that Rock didn't survive the end of World War 2. Looking over Wikipedia, I saw different descriptions, which is fitting considering how loosely Kanigher could play with continuity. Heck, Kanigher even wrote a story himself where Rock survived the war (Our Army at War #168), but I guess he reconsidered later.

Typically it's said Rock is killed by the last bullet fired in the war. DC Universe: Legacies #4 expanded on that, stating Rock was killed by the last bullet fired, saving a child who wandered into a crossfire. OK, I can certainly see Rock dying to save a kid. But I've read stories where Easy thinks Rock has been killed*, and the idea they wouldn't return fire, especially when they're already in a firefight, doesn't quite fit.

Kanigher said in the letters column of Sgt. Rock #374 he believed Rock and all of Easy Company died during World War 2. The citation at least doesn't mention any specifics, if Kanigher provided them.

I'm not attached to any of Rock's post-World War 2 appearances myself. The only one I've even read is an issue of Giffen's Suicide Squad I flipped through once. I don't have a burning desire to see Rock still alive now, interacting with the JSA, or the Doom Patrol, or whatever. Besides, if someone does want that, it's easy to say the Sgt. Rock of 1943 was on night patrol, and a grenade explosion blasted him through a random time portal to the present day, and there you go. If one is so inclined.

I just find it a little odd that Kanigher is so adamant about Rock and the rest of Easy Co. not surviving the war. He said with regards to Rock, 'He and Easy Company live only, and will eventually die, to the last man, in World War II.' I know soldiers die in war, that's no newsflash. And given the amount of gunfire, grenades, tank treads, and lousy weather Rock encountered, he probably shouldn't have survived. The way Kanigher describes states it, gives the impression Rock didn't exist before the war began. That he was some Uncle Sam like spirit of battle, given form by the intensity of the conflict. On a meta level that's true, though Rock wasn't created until after the war. But Kanigher provided backstory for Rock, about his father, about what Rock had done before the war. It isn't as though (in universe) Rock sprang fully-formed from an exploding shell hole directly into battle. He was a person before the war, so the end of the war shouldn't necessarily mean the end of his existence. Some soldiers do die, others make it home.

The world's not fair, of course, so there's no reason to expect that Rock or the soldiers he lead would be rewarded for their efforts by getting to go home alive, but there's no reason why they couldn't wind up making it. It seems equally apt for Rock to survive and return home to take up a job, maybe something that would involve fighting or protecting others, maybe he goes back to the steel mill.

Your thoughts?

* See "Easy Had It" in Our Army at War #203. There they paused to carry him back down the hill they were advancing on first. Then they turned around, marched back up, and took that position. In that case, though, they hadn't really engaged the enemy, as Rock was struck with the enemy's first rounds.