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Pfc Zdunkewicz enlisted shortly after graduating from Edinburg High School, where he was fullback of the Bobcat football team during the 1942-1943 season.

He joined his unit from the 92nd Replacement Battalion on 28 January 1945 and was promoted to private first class on 1 March 1945.

From time to time the German artillery dropped some rounds from across the Elbe River into the American lines who occuped the city. One evening the shelling was particularly heavy, and two men from the platoon, who were at the checkpoint at the edge of town, had to dive for a safe hole. One of them, Pf. Zdunkewicz, was hit by shell fragments in the stomach. The medics fixed him up as best they could. A doctor, Capt Hazlett, gave him until one or two the next morning to live unless he could have surgery. Zdunkewicz asked the chaplain, who happened to be there at the aid station, if he would live. The chaplain looked at the doctor who shook his head to indicate, "No." With a straight face the chaplain then said, "You'll be all right, don't worry." An ambulance soon began a 75 mile trip back through all of that rear echelon confusion in search of a field hospital where the surgery could take place. The ambulance arrived about 1:00 AM and as he was being lifted on a litter from the ambulance, Zdunkewicz began to show signs that he might be dying. Before the cleaning process could be completed for surgery, he was dead.