My (future) father, then 20 years old, stands in his new uniform for a photo with his father Max in 1944 in the Bronx, NYC. Though he received his induction letter at the start of the war he requested a deferment to complete his college degree in electrical engineering, which the government granted. After graduation, he chose the Navy because (he later said) he thought there would be fewer guns on a boat. The Navy decided to station their new engineering graduate in Chicago for radar antenna training, rather than assign him to a ship.

While he was in Chicago the war ended and they deployed him to the Philippines to relieve service members who had maintained the Subic Bay radar during combat days. Because his enlistment was made during WWII he was a veteran, though the heaviest action he actually saw during his deployment was learning how to say “I think you are a beautiful girl” in Tagalog. He could recite that line in Tagalog, and several other dating lines he learned, for the rest of his life.

Photographer is unknown. It might have been his older sister. Scan was made from a print.