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SALT LAKE CITY — Quentin Murdock still loves to work around his farm west of Blackfoot, Idaho, he just does it on a smaller scale these days.
"I never knew a person could work so hard," he said, surveying the gardens outside his farmhouse.
After serving in World War II, he dug his farm out of sagebrush and lava rock. He prospered with a lot of hard work and innovation with sprinklers.
But seven decades after Murdock finished fighting the Nazis, he's still amazed he made it home alive.
"There wasn't hardly a day that I couldn't have been killed," he said of the two years he spent in combat.
The first lieutenant led soldiers into battle in North Africa and Sicily as a member of the 1st Infantry Division, known as The Big Red One.
"Some days specifically I was dead, but something saved me," he said, looking to the heavens.
Murdock earned two Presidential Unit Citations and a Silver Star. He and his men fought their way through nearly every town in Tunisia. He was awarded the Silver Star for his courageous actions in a night attack on a strategic hill that was a German stronghold.
"You can imagine the fire that was coming in on us there," Murdock said.
At the top of the hill he hunkered down in a hole in the rock.
"Everybody just had to stay below the surface, or you were dead."
As the bullets rained in, a half-dozen Germans surrounded him.
"They just turned their assault rifles on me," Murdock said. "Bullets were going under my legs and under my arms. None of the damn bullets penetrated me."
That battle was the beginning of the end of the war in Africa. But Murdock was captured and put on a prison ship in the Mediterranean Sea.
"I guess they thought I did something pretty good, because I was the only one to make it over the top of the hill with my platoon."
Murdock came down with malaria. At the same time, the prisoners endured in the belly of the boat as Allied planes dive-bombed the vessel.
"So you would cover up your head and wonder if this is your last breath now or not."
The boat sank. But fortunately for the prisoners, it settled on a sandbar. The Germans abandoned it and the prisoners when Allied troops gained control of the area.
In Sicily, Murdock fought a German panzer division that threatened to drive U.S. soldiers back into the sea. Victory in Sicily cleared the way for the invasion of mainland Italy. But it was the battle on Omaha Beach, and the barrage of bullets as they waded ashore on D-Day, that stirs Murdock's emotions.
"You can't believe the bravery that some people took on that beach," said Murdock.
A close comrade blew through the barbed wire that enabled Murdock and his unit to make it to the top of the hill.
"Somehow we made it up there and won the invasion," he said.
He took a photograph from the top of the hill showing the beach as more troops came ashore. Every member of his former platoon, which was not under his command that day, was killed.
"They were my friends,” he said, tearing up. "They're all buried up there in that cemetery. It's real hard not to think back about it. You just remember those things."
The 95-year-old thought of those friends and those brutal battles when he entered the World War II Memorial in Washington in June as part of the Utah Honor Flight.
"There were so many acts of bravery, you couldn't decorate everybody."
Murdock’s case of malaria ultimately ended his service. He was pulled from his unit before they fought in the Battle of the Bulge.
"We were proud Americans, and had to win the war," he said. "So we just did it."
After his journey with Utah Honor Flight, Murdock knows the rest of America is proud of what they did, too.
Murdock lives with his second wife and spends his winters in St. George. He says he's too busy to slow down and has no plans to take it easy.
