William E. Hunt dropped out of high school at the age of 16. Declaring he was born February 29, 1920, he enlisted in the Iowa Army National Guard in April 1939. He was assigned to the somewhat newly-organized 113th Cavalry, which at that time still exclusively used horses. The 113th Cavalry began conversion into a combined horse-armored unit in September 1940 and was mobilized into federal service on January 13, 1941. Hunt trained as a radio operator, and participated in the United States Army's landing in Algeria and Sicily before being among the first wave of soldiers going ashore at Utah Beach as part of the Normandy Landings on June 6, 1944. He later said about the war, "If it taught me anything, it taught me how lucky I was. The war taught me we're all the same. We all do our best, and we can't worry about our differences." Another formative experience for Hunt was exposure to the racial segregation faced by African American soldiers during the war, which deeply troubled him. Hunt mustered out of the army in 1945, but reenlisted in 1946. He served in the United States Army Reserve and the Montana Army National Guard until 1950. He graduated from the Army Officer Candidate School, and rose to the rank of captain.