The Courage and Resilience of Edward Joseph Tipper Jr.: From D-Day Wounds to a Life Rebuilt
He was born on the 3rd of August 1921 in Detroit, Michigan, to parents who had immigrated from Ireland. When Edward was very young the family briefly returned to Ireland before settling again in the United States. By the time he finished school in 1939 he was working in a department store, living an ordinary life that must have felt full of possibility.
Everything changed after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Like many young men of his generation, he felt the pull to serve. After being rejected by the Marines because of an overbite, he joined the United States Army and volunteered for the paratroopers. Training at Camp Toccoa was famously brutal, but it also created strong bonds between the men of Easy Company.
On D-Day, Tipper parachuted into Normandy alongside the rest of his company and he soon found himself fighting the Germans. During the battle for Carentan, a mortar explosion left him gravely wounded. His right eye was destroyed and his legs were badly injured. Fellow soldiers carried him to safety.
After spending months in hospitals, he returned home and slowly rebuilt his life. Though he walked with a cane and wore an eyepatch, he went on to earn a master’s degree, and became a teacher. He went on to marry and he became a father.
He died on the 1st of February 2017 at the incredible age of ninety five.
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