I took heavy weapons infantry basic training at Camp Breckenridge, Kentucky with the 101st airborne infantry division.

One of the more serious events of that basic training period was the time we were training in the use of the 80mm mortars. This occurred in March of 1953.

The day we were scheduled to go out on the range to shoot the mortars, I had drawn KP duty. What they would do in a situation like that was have shooters who had qualified come back in and relieve the KP'ers so they could come out and qualify on the particular weapon in question.

One of my buddies, Sir Walter Raleigh, was on KP duty with me along with 5 or 6 other guys. When the truck came back in to pick us up from our KP duty, I had been sent to the supply room to get some things for the cooks.

They made the switch without me. Sir Walter and the rest of the crew that were with him from my KP crew went out and had their turn. They shot. The round that they dropped in the mortar went out about 15 feet and exploded right there. It killed one of the cadre and wounded 8 or 10 other guys.

Now is there anything humorous in this? Well, Sir Walter would squat down and hold his ears every time a round went off. He had his turn and he was just a crew member at that time. They dropped the round in and he squatted down as usual. When that thing blew, many of the crew around were suddenly bleeding all over the place, he scrambled around trying to help others who were wounded.

The guys said he kept complaining about this sharp pain he felt on the top of his head. One of the guys said to him that he should take his helmet off. When he did there was a piece of shrapnel dead center in the top of his helmet.

It had penetrated the helmet and the helmet liner and was just touching his scalp. They said when he saw that his eyes got about three inches in diameter and had he been able to, he would have turned white as a sheet.

There was a lot of government talk and investigation over that incident. Some of the guys were pretty badly wounded.

I've often been thankful that I wasn't on that crew because I happened to be in the supply room or I might have very well been one of those injured or killed.

Walter D Zimmerman RA52239339

Mesa, Arizona

480-964-0516