Edward J. Tipper Jr. was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1921 to an Irish couple. The family moved back to Ireland when Tipper was three years old, but they returned to the United States later. Tipper graduated from school in 1939 in Detroit and worked at a department store. PFC Edward J. Tipper was a soldier in the 101st Airborne Division, 506 PIR, assigned to Easy Company. He made his first combat jump into Normandy on D-Day, where he met with fellow Easy Company member Frank Mellet and some other paratroopers and engaged in a firefight with a German patrol. Later, he and the men attacked the Marmion Farm. Some other Easy Company members, including Floyd Talbert, Forrest Guth, and Walter Gordon, were also involved in the attack, albeit with another group of American soldiers. The soldiers held the place before joining their own units.

Tipper fought in Carentan: after clearing a house, a mortar shell exploded near him when he was standing in the doorway. His right eye was destroyed and his legs were severely burned. Joseph Liebgott, a fellow Easy Company member, was the first one to reach him and attended to him; Liebgott and Harry Welsh then dragged Tipper to a nearby aid station. Tipper was sent to a hospital in England, where his right eye was removed. He was then sent back to the United States.

Several months after the attack, Tipper visited good friend Floyd Talbert's family. Talbert told his family that the visitor could only be someone else because he thought Tipper must have died from his injury in Carentan. Tipper was discharged on August 1945 after one year in Army hospitals. At first, Tipper needed to walk with a cane and wore an eye patch. Tipper remembered how everybody would want to do something to show support for the returning veterans: for instance, someone would pay his bill for him at a restaurant, or there would be no bill at all.

Tipper attended the University of Michigan and completed his master's degree in English at the University of Northern Colorado, and became a teacher. In 1961 he won the John Hay Fellowship. When Tipper was sixty-one, he met with Rosie (who was then thirty-four) and they were married despite strong opposition on February 12, 1983. Their daughter, Kerry, was born ten months later. Ed passed away on Feb. 1, 2017 and is now buried in Fort Logan National Cemetery, Denver, Denver County, Colorado, USA.

Source of information: findagrave.com, http://wikiofbrothers.wikia.com, Wikipedia.org.