Kansas veteran joined the Navy on his 18th birthday during the Korean War

WICHITA, Kans (KSNW) — With the Korean War raging on, Edgar Kirner joined the Navy on his 18th birthday.

The year was 1952, and at that time, he says he was told he’d be among the first sailors to put a brand-new tank landing ship (commonly known as an LST) into commission.

“I was a deckhand, to begin with, but then I found out there was an opening for a gunner’s mate,” Kirner said.

Assigned to Turret #3, Kirner would keep the weapon at the ready as his ship, the USS Traverse County, carried out war games throughout the Atlantic.

“We had to practice an airplane flyover with a drone behind it, and we were supposed to shoot at the drone, not the airplane,” Kirner said. “We got pretty close to the airplane, the airplane cut the drone loose, and said, ‘we’re done,’ they got outta there.”

Kirner would serve in the Navy for four years, but his time in the military was far from over. Nine months later, he would go from the seas to the skies and join the Air Force.

“It was easier in the skies,” Kirner says with a chuckle.

Kirner says he trained to become an Air Force firefighter — his first duty station was Schilling Air Force Base in Salina.

“The planes would come in there and practice bombing,” Kirner said. “One time … the pilot missed the target area by five miles, and he set the grass on fire … five miles, that’s what I was told. What it was, I don’t know; I know I was beat after we got it out.”

Kirner would work to fight fires at bases around the world, from McConnell Air Force Base to a base in England and one in the outermost Aleutian Islands just 50 miles away from Russia.

“I must have made somebody mad … Shemya is only a little island, two miles wide, four miles long,” Kirner said. “I was there one year … when I [came] back to McConnell, I told my wife, I told her, ‘I know I’m going to Heaven because I spent my year in Hell.'”

But Kirner says serving as a firefighter would soon take a much different toll. While stationed in Germany, he says he witnessed the aftermath of a deadly plane crash in the Black Forest. During his career, he assisted at the scene of nine different plane crashes — one of which was the 1965 crash of a KC-135 Stratotanker into a northeast Wichita neighborhood.

“I was one of the vehicles, first military firefighting equipment … I was in one of the vehicles that responded to that,” Kirner said. “I try to forget all the ones I’ve been on, but that was the very … the worst one.”

Kirner’s final duty station would be in Arkansas. After retiring from the Air Force in 1974, he says he went on to work alongside the WFD, Red Cross, and Sedgwick County EMS. He retired from fighting fires in 2012.

“Once it gets in your blood, it stays in your blood,” Kirner said. “I’m retired; every time I hear a siren go by, I look to see what’s going on.”

Kirner would also go on to work for the VA. He was recognized for 12 years of service this past April.

If you want to nominate a veteran for our Veteran Salute, email KSN reporter Jason Lamb at [email protected].