Watching WED on TV, it occurred to me that "Shaffer" is a German surname. Although German-Americans were very common in the US military, why did the writer chose a German name instead of say "Shepard" which is the English equivalent? I wonder if the original script used the name to make the Eastwood character a possible suspect in a movie full of turncoats?
Eisenhower was?
I don't know if the book illuminates this, but I thought it was random. But given the film's classic turncoat scene, maybe it was deliberately a Red Herring?
Though they all speak English in the film, it's supposed to be make-believe German at all times, at least in Germany. And as there was an American outsider invited to the English party, it would have to be an American fluent in the German language. So, it's not far fatched to believe they wrote Schaffer as being an American with German pedigree and with German speaking people in his family. And they wouldn't even have to look very far. German Americans are the fourth largest ancestry group in the United States, with at least 50 million people counting Germans as their forefathers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_American
That's his name in the novel, too, so, I dunno.
"I mean, really, how many times will you look under Jabba's manboobs?"