Cimorelli attended Frankford High School and worked as a mail order clerk before enlisting in the Army in October 1963. The 22-year-old specialist four, a gunner, was stationed in Germany, where he re-enlisted, before going to Vietnam in March 1968 and joining Company B of the 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division. Cimorelli was killed by hostile rocket fire on June 18, 1968. "John's death seems like I lost half of myself," said his twin brother, Francis, who himself had served in Germany, Korea and Vietnam. Besides his brother, Cimorelli was survived by his mother, a sister and a half-brother.