American GIs often referred to it as the million-dollar wound.
It often meant the war was over for the man who was wounded.
But the months of pain and therapy and, for some, a lifetime of permanent physical damage, were just beginning.
Daryl “Pete” Zutter of Toppenish, who passed away Mar. 1, got his million-dollar wound in the Battle of The Bulge in 1944, the bloodiest single action fought by American forces in WWII.
The German counter-attack that initiated the battle was an act of desperation that was doomed to failure from the outset, but it was no less deadly for the Allied forces, predominantly American, that resisted it.  
Between the middle of Dec. 16 and Jan. 25, More than 19,000 U.S. troops died, and more than 47,000 were wounded or missing by the time the German attack was stopped, far short of its objective of the port city of Antwerp.
Zutter was shot by a German sniper Dec. 22, 1944, as he and other members of Co. L, 109th Infantry Brigade, 28th Infantry Division, pushed through Luxembourg toward Germany.
Just three days earlier, Dec. 19, Zutter had earned the Silver Star for gallantry in action as he and his company, supported by two light tanks, fought to clear a German stronghold.   
After being wounded, Zutter was evacuated to a hospital in France and was then transferred to a hospital in England, where he spent several months.
He was hit in the upper part of his right arm.
“His arm was almost shot off,” said his wife, Nina.
Zutter was still receiving therapy for the wound at Madigan Hospital in Tacoma as late as August, 1945.
She said the wound destroyed nerves in the arm and caused the loss of function in the thumb and two fingers of his right hand.
But though he had only limited use of the limb, it didn’t interfere with his life after the war.
“It didn’t stop him,” said Nina.
She met Zutter when she moved to Toppenish from Illinois in the late 40s, and the couple was married in 1949. They lived in Toppenish all their married lives.
 Zutter worked for John I. Haas as a heavy equipment operator, was a welder, and performed maintenance on machinery.
He also worked at the U&I Sugar plant as a maintenance man and welder before he opened his own business repairing and maintaining small engines and lawn movers.
He built cabinets and made other improvements in their home, Nina said.
He hunted and fished in his spare time, and he also raised cattle in Zillah, which Nina said was what he enjoyed most.
Nina said her husband very seldom talked about his war experience, but she believed it left emotional scars as well as physical ones.
She recounted a conversation with him before she had agreed to marry him.
“He said, ‘How come you won’t marry me?’” she recalled. “He asked me, ‘Is it because I’ve killed men?’”
She said a few weeks before he passed away, he had difficulty sleeping, and she had been up with him for three days and nights, mostly without sleep.
When she told him how much she just wanted to get some rest, he suggested she try “living in the same clothes for three weeks and sleeping on the ground.”
Those were the conditions American troops lived in during the Battle of the Bulge for nearly a month-and-a-half, during one of the coldest winters in Europe in a decade.
Nina said Zutter had nightmares throughout their married life.
In addition to the Silver Star and the Purple Heart, Zutter’s discharge papers also indicate he was awarded a Bronze Star, but Nina said she did not know the circumstances under which it was awarded.
Nina also had five brothers, who all served in the military, and the eldest of which was lost at sea during WWII. Two of the others served during the Korean and Vietnam conflicts.
“My poor mother went through a lot,” said Nina.