Private First Class Piper was a member of Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. He was wounded and taken Prisoner of War by the enemy in South Korea on February 13, 1951 and died of those wounds while a prisoner on June 18, 1951. In 2017, his remains were identified. His name is permanently inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial.