Los Cerrillos, New Mexico, on 17 July 1898 to Wallace Walker and his wife Emma née Overturf. The family subsequently moved to Denver, Colorado. Kenneth's father left when he was young, and Emma became a single mother. Kenneth began his education at the Maria Mitchell School in Denver, Colorado, from 1905 to 1908, and then attended the Columbian School there from 1908 to 1912. He went to Central High School for a time until 1913 when he started at the Omaha High School of Commerce, from which he graduated in 1915. From January to June 1917 he took a course at the YMCA Night School in Denver. He then studied business administration at La Salle Extension University. Walker enlisted in the United States Army in Denver, on 15 December 1917. He received flight training at the University of California's School of Military Aeronautics and at the pilot training base at Mather Field, near Sacramento, California. He was awarded his Aircrew Badge and commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant in the United States Army Air Service on 2 November 1918. He then attended the Flying Instructor's School at Brooks Field in San Antonio, Texas, and became an instructor at the flight training center at Barron Field. In March 1919, he was posted to Fort Sill as an instructor at the Air Service Flying School. During 1918, the School for Aerial Observers and the Air Service Flying School were built at nearby Post Field, where Walker spent the next four years as a pilot, instructor, supply officer, and post adjutant. Between the wars Walker became one of many officers holding wartime commissions to receive a commission in the Regular Army, into which he was commissioned as a first lieutenant on 1 July 1920, but was subsequently reduced in rank to second lieutenant on 15 December 1922, another common occurrence in the aftermath of World War I when the wartime army was demobilized. Already a command pilot, he also qualified as a combat observer in 1922. He was promoted to first lieutenant again on 24 July 1924. Walker courted Marguerite Potter, a sorority member and sociology graduate at the Norman campus of the University of Oklahoma. The two were married in September 1922. In lieu of a honeymoon, they boarded a troop transport to the Philippines on 12 December 1922. Walker initially became Commander of the Air Intelligence Section at Camp Nichols. He