A video recording of an in-person interview conducted by Cole Hawkins with Harold Koeplin on November 19, 2013. Born on May 8, 1926, Koeplin was drafted into the United States Army in 1944. He was deployed to Europe in early 1945, arriving just in time to take part in the Battle of the Bulge.
Assigned as a rifleman in Company K, 120th Infantry Regiment, Koeplin fought in the Ardennes Forest and into the Rhineland. On March 24, 1945, while crossing the Rhine River, he was wounded by a mortar shell, along with a fellow soldier. Evacuated to a field hospital in France, he recovered as the war came to an end. After returning home, he pursued higher education at Michigan State University, where he joined ROTC and was commissioned. During the Korean War, he served stateside at Fort Lawton, Washington.
