Images from the first days of the Battle of the Bulge, 16 December 1944

[Straw Man]

16. You're welcome.

He got himself to a battlefield aid station on foot. They sent him to the field hospital, and he was evacuated from there to an army hospital in England. That's where the decision was made that he should be demobilized and sent home. It might have been because the missing finger was his right index finger -- the "trigger finger," which is kind of important for an infantryman, but it's more likely that the shrapnel in his back was considered serious because it was close to his spine. Luckily for him, it was stable and didn't cause him any further problems.