Corporal Zimm peered out from his foxhole and asked himself for the third time that night why he hadn’t joined the Navy like his grandfather told him.

He had heard the news; he knew it was bad all over, but he also knew those battleships a hundred miles off the coast were faring much better than what was left of his squadron. In six hours, 2nd Platoon, 117th Golf Co. had been reduced from nearly 60 men to just four, himself included. Lieutenant Murphy had bought it before they even hit the beach; a piece of shrapnel caught him right across the bridge of his nose, shattering the cartilage and sending tiny shards into his brain, killing him instantly. Even the major hadn’t survived much more than one, maybe two hours before the Germans caught him and, seeing that his last name was Jewish, garroted him with a length of barb wire they cut from the nearby trenches.

Zimm had seen the gruesome, murderous act from his foxhole and fainted with fright as he watched his commanding officer writhing in agony, blood spurting from his throat, and realized deep down in the pit of his stomach that this was real; that it could happen to him, that he could wind up dead before the night was through.

The reality of his own mortality and the realization that he could die was enough to paralyze Zimm for hours. He lay almost completely motionless, barely moving, barely breathing, as he watched his comrades fall one by one, hearing their screams, watching as their bodies were torn in two by heavy machine gun fire, all the while searching for something, anything, to give him the courage to rise from his hiding place, to fight, and if necessary, to die alongside the soldiers whose bodies littered the blood-soaked battlefields. But try as he might, nothing came. He remained paralyzed, overwhelmed by fear.

After lying there for several hours, he suddenly became aware of a sharp pain in his left leg. Propping himself up on his elbows, he turned his head to look at his leg and automatically turned it back forward. There was blood everywhere. Was it his? Had he been shot? He didn’t know, but he had to find out. Rolling over on his buttocks to get a closer look, he discovered a small puncture wound approximately six inches below his groin. At first he thought he had been shot; closer examination revealed a small metal sliver – shrapnel from a starburst that went off too close to the ground – stuck in his left thigh.

Realizing he couldn’t wait forever for proper medical attention, Zimm wrapped both hands firmly around the shrapnel, closed his eyes, turned his head, and pulled as hard as he could. The noise – it couldn’t be classified as a scream – was enough to wake the dead; the fact that he lost consciousness immediately thereafter saved Zimm from joining them. As he was examining his wound, Nazi troops were advancing towards the trenches on the Allied side of the beach. At the exact moment he removed the shrapnel, machine gunners were less than a hundred yards away and closing fast.

Hearing him scream, the squad leader gave orders to set up their tripod and fire at will; the first burst from their gun came within inches of Zimm’s head as he fell back into his foxhole. At the same moment a starburst exploded directly overhead. Seeing Zimm fall backward, the squad leader assumed he had been hit and ordered his men to move on.