WWII vet to get a new set of medals

A freak garage fire stole RKay Mower's military memories nearly 50 years ago.

Gone were the pictures he snapped during World War II. Gone were the old uniforms he wore while serving in both the Army and the Air Force. But toughest of all, gone were the medals he earned during about six years of service.

Now, thanks to the Utah National Guard, he's getting them back.

"I'm finally gonna have 'em," Mower, 79, said with a smile. "It sure means a lot to me. You know, I'm getting pretty old. This kinda puts the finishing touches on my military experience."

And it was an experience to remember, he said. From fighting on the front lines of the Battle of the Bulge to driving tanker trucks full of fuel for B-26 bombers to feeding hungry soldiers in the mess hall, Mower just about experienced it all.

A fire in 1957 at his Holladay home in an unattached garage burned up every old picture and medal Mower owned from the war.

"That was a lot of memories," Mower said.

Memories like that of the Battle of the Bulge, where 19,000 Americans lost their lives. It was Dec. 16, 1944, and bitter cold with the snow at least 6 inches deep. Mower was asleep in a bunker when enemy fire tattered the landscape.

"All hell broke loose," Mower said. "I wondered if the world was coming to an end."

Mower was a gunner with the Army's 106th Infantry Division in charge of mortar fire. The Utah soldier was in the thick of the famous battle and came within inches of death multiple times.

Mower's days on the front line abruptly ended on Christmas Day 1944. Machine-gun bullets came close to Mower's body, but it was an artillery blast that catapulted him into the air and slammed him into the ground.

"I was picked up and just thrown and violently shook," Mower said. "My whole body was shaking, then I hit the ground."

Mower pulled himself back up and escaped without any shrapnel wounds or lost limbs. The blast did, however, cause Mower to bleed internally and vomit blood.

Mower received a Bronze Star for "firing my mortar under extremely dangerous position" during that battle. He was launching mortar beneath an overhanging log that was so close, "every time I fired, there was smoke."