Captain America and Sammy Davis Jr.

(Warning, slight spoiler for Captain America movie)

I was talking to Charlie today and he was telling me about the television show called General Electric Theater. In particular an episode called The Patsy This episode features Sammy Davis Jr. as an army recruit who is picked on by his fellow recruits. Charlie described a moment in the show where a dummy grenade is tossed into a group of the recruits and Davis' character jumps on the grenade while everyone else looks on. When he told me this I immediately recalled a similar incident in the Captain America film. Instead of being the prank of a bully this time it's done by someone attempting to show who in a platoon of soldiers is the most brave. Can you guess which character was willing to sacrifice himself for his comrades? I am not the only person to to see the similarity.

A quick search shows that a similar event was used in a MASH episode in a prank Rizzo attempted to pull in Winchester. And, more sobering, a brave Marine sacrificed himself by covering a grenade with his body in Iraq in 2004. A real life Captain America.