Walter Edwin Bricker was born in Van Wert County on August 15, 1918, the 10th of 11 children born to Daniel and Emma Bricker. Three sisters and a brother died before he was born. Both of his maternal grandparents, the Marquardt's, had emigrated from Germany. His parents first settled in Payne, Ohio before moving to Convoy shortly before Walter was born. The Bricker's lived on North Main Street and Walter's father managed the village grain elevator.

Walter's parents divorced when he was still an adolescent. Daniel afterwards remarried and moved to Rockford, Ohio leaving Emma to raise six school-age children by herself. She moved her family to a home on East Tully Street after the divorce. Walter's older brother, Bernard, helped to support the family by working as a clerk in a dry goods store. Walter attended Tully-Convoy School and graduated in 1936.

After high school, Walter continued to live at home while working as a salesman in the local Ford garage. The owner, Floyd Herl, had been in business in Convoy since 1912 and was the oldest automobile dealer in the industry at the time. Arline Rager, the daughter of the village baker, worked as a bookkeeper for Mr. Herl. Walter and Arline established a relationship that would lead to marriage. In 1942, the World was at war and Walter was inducted into the U.S. Army Air Force. Arline drove Walter's 1940 Mercury Coupe to Scott Army Airfield in Belleville, Illinois where Walter was training to be an aircraft radio operator/gunner. They were married on July 3, 1942 before he left to serve in the North African Campaign.

His unit, the 348th Bomb Squadron of the 99th Bomb Group, was equipped with B17 Flying Fortress bombers and stationed at Navarin Airfield in Algeria. Walter's father, Daniel, had died in December, 1941 at the age of 63. His mother, Emma, died just shy of her 65th birthday in May, 1943. She had raised all of her children to adulthood. In Algeria, as Allied ground forces battled the German Afrikakorps, the crews of the 99th Bomb Group (Diamondbacks), flew missions to cut off German supply lines. Later, they flew across the Mediterranean Sea to bomb targets in Sicily and Italy. Walter was promoted quickly to the rank of Staff Sergeant. His duties involved radio communications as well as operating a machine gun when in hostile environments.

Walter was killed in action over Foggia, Italy on August 25, 1943. According to an account by his aircraft's waist gunner, Leonard K. Kirsh, their squadron of B-17s was attacked by an estimated 125 to 150 German ME-109 and FW-190 fighter aircraft as they crossed over the coast of Italy. Some 150 to 200 holes were shot into their aircraft along with one aileron being shot off. The badly damaged aircraft, nicknamed "Maverick", was able to make it back to Oudna Airfield, Tunisia (where they were based at the time) with the rest of the crew having survived the mission.

Walter's body was initially buried in The North Africa American Cemetery in Carthage, Tunisia until after the war when his remains were returned to Ohio. He was then buried in Payne next to his mother and three siblings who died at very young ages. There is an official Army Air Force stone marking his grave. Arline had also placed a granite memorial in his honor next to the graves of her parents, George and Leota Rager, in Section 1 of the Convoy I.O.O.F. Cemetery. Walter was posthumously promoted to Technical Sergeant and awarded the Air Medal for "meritorious achievement while participating in five sorties against the enemy".